“I’m not satisfied with it, now I come to look at it again.  It’s nothing but a rough sketch.”

“But Seaborne will be here this afternoon,” urged Spence.  “He will be grateful if you let him see it.”

“If he cares to come to my room, he shall.”

Miriam made no remark on the picture, but kept looking at it as long as it was uncovered.  The temples stood in the light of early morning, a wonderful, indescribable light, perfectly true and rendered with great skill.

“Is it likely to be soon sold?” she asked, when the artist had gone off with his canvas.

“As likely as not, he’ll keep it by him for a year or two, till he hates it for a few faults that no one else can perceive or be taught to understand,” was Mr. Spence’s reply.  “I wish I could somehow become possessed of it.  But if I hinted such a wish, he would insist on my taking it as a present.  An impracticable fellow, Mallard.  He suspects I want to sell it for him; that’s why he won’t leave it.  And if Seaborne goes to his room, ten to one he’ll be received with growls of surly independence.”

This Mr. Seaborne was a man of letters.  Spence had made his acquaintance in Rome a year ago; they conversed casually in Piale’s reading-room, and Seaborne happened to say that the one English landscape-painter who strongly interested him was a little-known man, Ross Mallard.  His own work was mostly anonymous; he wrote for one of the quarterlies and one of the weekly reviews.  He was a little younger than Mallard, whom in certain respects he resembled; he had much the same way of speaking, the same reticence with regard to his own doings, even a slight similarity of feature, and his life seemed to be rather a lonely one.

When the two met, they behaved precisely as Spence predicted they would—­with reserve, almost with coldness.  For all that, Seaborne paid a visit to the artist’s room, and in a couple of hours’ talk they arrived at a fair degree of mutual understanding.  The next day they smoked together in an odd abode occupied by the literary man near Porto di Ripetta, and thenceforth were good friends.

The morning after that, Mallard went early to the Vatican.  He ascended the Scala Regia, and knocked at the little red door over which is written, “Cappella Sistina.”  On entering, he observed only a gentleman and a young girl, who stood in the middle of the floor, consulting their guide-book; but when be had taken a few steps forward, he saw a lady come from the far end and seat herself to look at the ceiling through an opera-glass.  It was Mrs. Baske, and he approached whilst she was still intent on the frescoes.  The pausing of his footstep close to her caused her to put down the glass and regard him.  Mallard noticed the sudden change from cold remoteness of countenance to pleased recognition.  The brightening in her eyes was only for a moment; then she smiled in her usual half-absent way, and received him formally.