“Angela.”

She sealed and marked the envelope “private”, and ringing the bell for her man-servant requested him to deliver it himself into the hands of the Comtesse Hermenstein.  This matter dismissed from her mind she went to a portfolio full of sketches, and turned them over and over till she came to one dainty, small picture entitled, “Phillida et les Roses”.  It was a study of a woman’s nude figure set among branching roses, and was signed “Florian Varillo”.  Angela looked at it long and earnestly,—­all the delicate flesh tints contrasting with the exquisite hues of red and white roses were delineated with wonderful delicacy and precision of touch, and there was a nymph-like grace and modesty about the woman’s form and the drooping poise of her head, which was effective yet subtle in suggestion.  Was it a portrait of Pon-Pon?  Angry with herself Angela tried to put the hateful but insinuating thought away from her,—­it was the first slight shadow on the fairness of her love-dream,—­and it was like one of those sudden clouds crossing a bright sky which throws a chill and depression over the erstwhile smiling landscape.  To doubt Florian seemed like doubting her own existence.  She put the “Phillida” picture back in the portfolio and paced slowly to and fro in her studio, considering deeply.  Love and Fame—­Fame and Love!  She had both,—­and yet Aubrey Leigh had said such fortune seldom fell to the lot of a woman as to possess the two things together.  Might it not be her destiny to lose one of them?  If so, which would she prefer to keep?  Her whole heart, her whole impulses cried out, “Love”!  Her intellect and her ambitious inward soul said, “Fame”!  And something higher and greater than either heart, intellect, or soul whispered to her inmost self, “Work!—­God bids you do what is in you as completely as you can without asking for a reward of either Love or Fame.”  “But,” she argued with herself, “for a woman Love is so necessary to the completion of life.”  And the inward monitor replied, “What kind of Love?  Ephemeral or immortal?  Art is sexless;—­good work is eternal, no matter whether it is man or woman who has accomplished it.”  And then a great sigh broke from Angela’s lips as she thought, “Ah, but the world will never own woman’s work to be great even if it be so, because men give the verdict, and man’s praise is for himself and his own achievements always.”  “Man’s praise,” went on the interior voice, “And what of God’s final justice?  Have you not patience to wait for that, and faith to work for it?” Again Angela sighed; then happening to look up; in the direction of the music-gallery which occupied one end of her studio where the organ was fitted, she saw a fair young face peering down at her over the carved oak railing, and recognised Manuel.  She smiled;—­her two or three days’ knowledge of him had been more than sufficient to win her affection and interest.

“So you are up there!” she said, “Is my uncle sleeping?”