These exhortations were chiefly directed to Stanwell, partly because the inmates of the other studios were apt to elude them, partly also because the rumours concerning Stanwell’s portrait of Mrs. Millington had begun to disquiet the sculptor.  At first he had taken a condescending interest in the fact of his friend’s receiving an order, and had admonished him not to lose the chance of “showing up” his sitter and her environment.  It was a splendid opportunity for a fellow with a “message” to be introduced into the tents of the Philistine, and Stanwell was charged to drive a long sharp nail into the enemy’s skull.  But presently Arran began to suspect that the portrait was not as comminatory as he could have wished.  Mungold, the most kindly of rivals, let drop a word of injudicious praise:  the picture, he said, promised to be delightfully “in keeping” with the decorations of the ball-room, and the lady’s gown harmonized exquisitely with the window-curtains.  Stanwell, called to account by his monitor, reminded the latter that he himself had been selected by Mungold to do the Cupids for Mrs. Millington’s ball-room, and that the friendly artist’s praise could, therefore, not be taken as positive evidence of incapacity.

“Ah, but I didn’t do them—­I kicked him out!” Caspar rejoined; and Stanwell could only plead that, even in the cause of art, one could hardly kick a lady.

“Ah, that’s the worst of it.  If the women get at you you’re lost.  You’re young, you’re impressionable, you won’t mind my saying that you’re not built for a stoic, and hang it, they’ll coddle you, they’ll enervate you, they’ll sentimentalize you, they’ll make a Mungold of you!”

“Ah, poor Mungold,” Stanwell laughed.  “If he lived the life of an anchorite he couldn’t help painting pictures that would please Mrs. Millington.”

“Whereas you could,” Kate interjected, raising her head from the ironing-board where, Sphinx-like, magnificent, she swung a splendid arm above her brother’s shirts.

“Oh, well, perhaps I shan’t please her; perhaps I shall elevate her taste.”

Caspar directed a groan to his sister.  “That’s what they all think at first—­Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.  But inside the Dark Tower there’s the Venusberg.  Oh, I don’t mean that you’ll be taken with truffles and plush footmen, like Mungold.  But praise, my poor Ned—­praise is a deadly drug!  It’s the absinthe of the artist—­and they’ll stupefy you with it.  You’ll wallow in the mire of success.”

Stanwell raised a protesting hand.  “Really, for one order, you’re a little lurid!”

“One?  Haven’t you already had a dozen others?”

“Only one other, so far—­and I’m not sure I shall do that.”