"  .  .  .  I can give no reason, nor I will not;
More than have a lodged hate and a certain loathing
I bear Antonio."
Merchant of Venice.

One morning, towards the middle of March, the sisters were much excited at receiving a letter containing an order to photograph a picture in a studio at St. John\'s Wood.

It was written in a small legible handwriting, was dated from The Sycamores, and signed, Sidney Darrell.

"I wonder how he came to hear of us?" said Lucy, who cherished a particular admiration for the works of this artist.

[Pg 109]

"Perhaps Mr. Jermyn knows him," answered Gertrude.

"He would probably have spoken of him to us, if he did."

"Here," said Gertrude, "is Mr. Jermyn to answer for himself."

Frank, who had been admitted by Matilda, came into the waiting-room, where the sisters stood, a look as of the dawning spring-time in his vivid face and shining eyes.

"I have brought the proofs from The Woodcut," he said, drawing a damp bundle from his painting-coat. The Lorimers always read the slips of the story he was illustrating, and then a general council was held to decide on the best incident for illustration.

Lucy took the bundle and handed him the letter.

"Aren\'t you tremendously pleased?" he said.

"Do you know anything about this?" asked Lucy.

"How?"

"I mean, did you recommend us to him?"

"Not I. This letter is simply the reward of well-earned fame."

[Pg 110]

"Thank you, Mr. Jermyn; I really think you must be right. Do you know Sidney Darrell?"

"I have met him. But he is a great swell, you know, Miss Lucy, and he is almost always abroad."

"Yes," put in Gertrude; "his exquisite Venetian pictures!"

"Oh, Darrell is a clever fellow. Too fond of the French school, perhaps, for my taste. And the curious thing is, that, though his work is every bit as solid as it is brilliant, there is something rather sensational about his reputation."

"All this," cried Gertrude, "sounds exciting."

"I think that must be owing to the man himself," went on Frank. "Oakley knows him fairly well; says you may meet him one night at dinner, and he will ask you up to his studio. The first thing next morning you get a note putting you off; he is very sorry, but he is starting that day for India."

"Does he paint Indian pictures?"

"No, but is bitten at times with the \'big game\' craze; shoots tigers and sticks pigs, and so on. I believe his studio is quite a museum of trophies of the chase."

[Pg 111]

"By the by, Lucy, which of us is to go to The Sycamores to-morrow morning?"

"You must go, Gerty; I can\'t trust any one else to finish off those prints of little Jack Oakley, and they have been promised so long."

Gertrude consulted the letter.

"I shall have to take the big camera, which involves a cab."

"I wish I could have walked up with you," said Frank; "but, strange to say, I am very busy this week."

"I wish we were busy," answered Gertrude; "things are a little better, but it is slow work."

"I consider this letter of Darrell\'s a distinct move forward," cried hopeful Frank; "he will be able to recommend you to artists who are not a lot of out-at-elbow fellows," he added, holding out his hand in farewell, with a bright smile that belied the rueful words. "Now, please don\'t forget you are all coming to tea with Oakley and me on Sunday afternoon. And Miss Devonshire—you gave her my invitation?"

"Yes," said Lucy, promptly; then added[Pg 112] after a pause: "May her brother come too; he says he would like to?"

Frank scanned her quickly with his bright eyes.

"Certainly, if you like; he is not a bad sort of cub."

And then he departed abruptly.

"That was quite rude, for Mr. Jermyn," said Gertrude.

Lucy turned away with a slight flush on her fair face.

"It would be quite rude for anybody," she said, and went over to the studio.

Phyllis was spending the day at the Devonshires, but came back for the evening meal, by which time her sisters\' excitement on the subject of Darrell\'s letter had subsided; and no mention was made of it while they were at table.

After the meal, Phyllis went over to the window, drew up the blind, and amused herself, as was her frequent custom, by looking into the street.

"I wish you wouldn\'t do that," said Lucy; "any one can see right into the room."

"Why do you waste your breath, Lucy? You know it is never any good telling me not to do things, when I want to."

[Pg 113]

Gertrude, who had herself a secret, childish love for the gas-lit street, for the sight of the hurrying people, the lamps, the hansom cabs, flickering in and out the yellow haze, like so many fire-flies, took no part in the dispute, but set to work at repairing an old skirt of Phyllis\'s, which was sadly torn.

Meanwhile the spoilt child at the window continued her observations, which seemed to afford her considerable amusement.

"There is a light in Frank Jermyn\'s window—the top one," she cried; "I suppose he is dressing. He told me he had an early dance in Harley Street. I wish I were going to a dance."

There was a look of mischief in Phyllis\'s eyes as she looked round at Lucy, who was buried in the proof-sheets from The Woodcut.

"Phyllis, you are coughing terribly. Do come away from that draughty place," cried Gertrude, with real anxiety.

"Oh, I\'m all right, Gerty. Ah, there goes Master Frank. It is wet underfoot, and he has turned up his trousers, and his pumps are bulging from his coat-pocket. I wonder how many miles a week he walks on his way to dances?"

[Pg 114]

"It is quite delightful to see a person with such an enjoyment of every phase of existence," said Gertrude, half to herself.

"You poor, dear blasée thing. It is a pretty sight to see the young people enjoying themselves, as the little boy said in Punch, is it not? I wonder if Mr. Jermyn is going to walk all the way? Perhaps he will take the omnibus at the corner. He never \'soars higher than a \'bus,\' as he expresses it."

Wearying suddenly of the sport, Phyllis dropped the blind, and, coming over to Gertrude, knelt on the floor at her feet.

"It is a little dull, ain\'t it, Gerty, to look at life from a top-floor window?"

A curious pang went through Gertrude, as she tenderly stroked the nut-brown head.

"You haven\'t heard our news," she said, irrelevantly. "There, read that." And taking Mr. Darrell\'s note from her pocket, she handed it to Phyllis.

The latter read it through rather languidly.

"Yes, I suppose it is a good thing to be employed by such a person," she remarked. "Sidney Darrell?—Didn\'t I tell you I met[Pg 115] him last week at the Oakleys, the day I went to tea?"

*         *         *         *         *

The Sycamores was divided from the road by a high grey wall, beyond which stretched a neglected-looking garden of some size, and, on the March morning of which I write, this latter presented a singularly melancholy appearance.

The house itself looked melancholy also, as houses will which are very little lived in, and appeared to consist almost entirely of a large studio, built out like a disproportionate wing from the main structure.

Gertrude was led at once to the studio by a serious-looking manservant, who announced that his master would join her in a few minutes.

The apartment in which Gertrude found herself was of vast size, and bore none of the signs of neglect and disuse which marked the house and garden.

It was fitted up with all the chaotic splendour which distinguishes the studio of the modern fashionable artist; the spoils of many climes, fruits of many wanderings, being heaped, with more regard to [Pg 116]picturesqueness than fitness, in every available nook.

Going up to the carved fire-place, Gertrude proceeded to warm her hands at the comfortable wood-fire, a position badly adapted for taking stock of the great man\'s possessions, of which, as she afterwards confessed, she only carried away a prevailing impression of tiger-skins and Venetia............