Of course the stranger was very soon at his ease and chatting along comfortably.  The average American girl possesses the valuable qualities of naturalness, honesty, and inoffensive straightforwardness; she is nearly barren of troublesome conventions and artificialities, consequently her presence and her ways are unembarrassing, and one is acquainted with her and on the pleasantest terms with her before he knows how it came about.  This new acquaintanceship—­friendship, indeed—­ progressed swiftly; and the unusual swiftness of it, and the thoroughness of it are sufficiently evidenced and established by one noteworthy fact—­ that within the first half hour both parties had ceased to be conscious of Tracy’s clothes.  Later this consciousness was re-awakened; it was then apparent to Gwendolen that she was almost reconciled to them, and it was apparent to Tracy that he wasn’t.  The re-awakening was brought about by Gwendolen’s inviting the artist to stay to dinner.  He had to decline, because he wanted to live, now—­that is, now that there was something to live for—­and he could not survive in those clothes at a gentleman’s table.  He thought he knew that.  But he went away happy, for he saw that Gwendolen was disappointed.

And whither did he go?  He went straight to a slopshop and bought as neat and reasonably well-fitting a suit of clothes as an Englishman could be persuaded to wear.  He said—­to himself, but at his conscience—­“I know it’s wrong; but it would be wrong not to do it; and two wrongs do not make a right.”

This satisfied him, and made his heart light.  Perhaps it will also satisfy the reader—­if he can make out what it means.

The old people were troubled about Gwendolen at dinner, because she was so distraught and silent.  If they had noticed, they would have found that she was sufficiently alert and interested whenever the talk stumbled upon the artist and his work; but they didn’t notice, and so the chat would swap around to some other subject, and then somebody would presently be privately worrying about Gwendolen again, and wondering if she were not well, or if something had gone wrong in the millinery line.  Her mother offered her various reputable patent medicines, and tonics with iron and other hardware in them, and her father even proposed to send out for wine, relentless prohibitionist and head of the order in the District of Columbia as he was, but these kindnesses were all declined—­ thankfully, but with decision.  At bedtime, when the family were breaking up for the night, she privately looted one of the brushes, saying to herself, “It’s the one he has used, the most.”

The next morning Tracy went forth wearing his new suit, and equipped with a pink in his button-hole—­a daily attention from Puss.  His whole soul was full of Gwendolen Sellers, and this condition was an inspiration, art-wise.  All the morning his brush pawed nimbly away at the canvases, almost without his awarity—­awarity, in this sense being the sense of being aware, though disputed by some authorities—­turning out marvel upon marvel, in the way of decorative accessories to the portraits, with a felicity and celerity which amazed the veterans of the firm and fetched out of them continuous explosions of applause.