Lady, do you know the tune?
Ah, we all of us have hummed it!
I\'ve an old guitar has thrummed it
Under many a changing moon.
Thackeray.

When Frank next saw Sidney Darrell, the latter told him that he had abandoned the idea of the "Cressida," and was painting Phyllis Lorimer in her own character.

"Grey gown; Parma violets; grey and purplish background. Shall let Sir Coutts have it, I think," he added; "it will show up better at his place than amid the profanum vulgus of Burlington House."

"Mr. Darrell doesn\'t often paint portraits,[Pg 171] does he?" Lucy said, when Jermyn was discussing the matter one evening in Baker Street.

"Not often; but those that he has done are among his finest work. That one of poor Lady Watergate for instance—it is Carolus Duran at his very best."

"By the bye, what an incongruous friendship it always seems to me—Lord Watergate and Mr. Darrell," said Lucy.

"Oh, I don\'t know that it\'s much of a friendship," answered Frank.

"Lord Watergate often drops in at The Sycamores," put in Phyllis, helping herself from a smart bonbonnière from Charbonnel and Walker\'s; for Sidney found many indirect means of paying his pretty model; "I think he is such a nice old person."

"Old," cried Fanny; "he is not old at all. I looked him out in Mr. Darrell\'s Peerage. He is thirty-seven, and his name is Ralph."

"\'I love my love with an R..\' You said it just in that way, Fan," laughed Phyllis. "Yes, it is an odd friendship, if one comes to think of it—that big, kind, simple, Lord Watergate, and my elaborate friend, Sidney."

[Pg 172]

"Mr. Darrell is a perfect gentleman," interposed Fan, with dignity.

The occasional mornings at The Sycamores, afforded a pleasant break in the monotony of her existence. Darrell treated her with a careful, if ironical politeness, which she accepted in all good faith.

"Fan, as they call her, is a fool, but none the worse for that," had been his brief summing up of the poor lady, whom, indeed, he rather liked than otherwise.

It was the end of May, and the sittings had been going on in a spasmodic, irregular fashion, throughout the month. Both the girls enjoyed them. Darrell, like the rest of the world, treated Phyllis as a spoilt child; gave her sweets and flowers galore; and what was better, tickets for concerts, galleries, and theatres, of which her sisters also reaped the benefit.

Gertrude secretly disliked the whole proceeding, but, aware that she had no reasonable objection to offer, wisely held her peace; telling herself that if one person did not turn her little sister\'s head, another was sure to do so; and perhaps the sooner she was accustomed to the process the better.

"Why won\'t you come up and see my[Pg 173] portrait?" Phyllis had pleaded; "I am going next Sunday, so you can have no excuse."

"I shall see it when it is finished," Gertrude had answered.

"Oh, but you can get a good idea of what it will look like, already. It is a great thing, life-size, and ends at about the knees. I am standing up and looking over my shoulder, so. I suppose Mr. Darrell has found out how nicely my head turns round on my neck."

Gertrude had laughed, and even attempted a pun in her reply, but she did not accompany her sister to The Sycamores. Indeed, more subtle reasons apart, she had little time to spare for unnecessary outings.

The business, as businesses will, had taken a turn for the better, and the two members of the partnership had their hands full. Rumours of the Photographic Studio had somehow got abroad, and various branches of the public were waking up to an interest in it.

People who had theories about woman\'s work; people whose friends had theories; people who were curious and fond of novelty; individuals from each of these[Pg 174] sections began to find their way to Upper Baker Street. Gertrude, as we know, had refused at an early stage of their career to be interviewed by The Waterloo Place Gazette; but, later on, some unauthorised person wrote a little account of the Lorimers\' studio in one of the society papers, of which, if the taste was questionable, the results were not to be questioned at all.

Moreover, it had got about in certain sets that all the sisters were extremely beautiful, and that Sidney Darrell was painting them in a group for next year\'s Academy, a canard certainly not to deprecated from a business point of view.

Such things as these, do not, of course, make the solid basis of success, but in a very overcrowded world, they are apt to be the most frequent openings to it. In these days, the aspirant to fame is inclined to over-value them, forgetting that there is after all something to be said for making one\'s performance such as will stand the test of so much publicity.

The Lorimers knew little of the world, and of the workings of the complicated machinery necessary for getting on in it; and while chance favoured them in the[Pg 175] matter of gratuitous advertisement, devoted their energies to keeping up their work to as high a standard as possible.

Life, indeed, was opening up for them in more ways than one. The calling which they pursued brought them into contact with all sorts and conditions of men, among them, people in many ways more congenial to them than the mass of their former acquaintance; intercourse with the latter having come about in most cases through "juxtaposition&q............