smiles, caught him in his wanderer's dress, and walking side by side with the infant wonder of Mr. Rugge's show, exquisitely neat indeed, but still in a colored print, of a pattern familiar to his observant eye in the windows of many a shop lavish of tickets, and inviting you to come in by the assurance that it is "selling off." The artist stopped, colored, bowed, answered the listless questions put to him with shy haste; he then attempted to escape—they would not let him.
"You must come back and dine with us at the Star and Garter," said Lady Selina Vipont. "A pleasant party—you know most of them—the Dudley Slowes, dear old Lady Frost, those pretty ladies Prymme, Janet and Wilhelmina."
"We can't let you off," said sleepily Mr. Crampe, a fashionable wit, who rarely made more than one bon-mot in the twenty-four hours, and spent the rest of his time in a torpid state.
Vance. "Really you are too kind, but I am not even dressed for—"
Lady Selina. "So charmingly dressed—so picturesque! Besides, what matters? Every one knows who you are. Where on earth have you been?"
Vance. "Rambling about, taking sketches."
Lady Selina (directing her eye-glass toward Lionel and Sophy, who stood aloof). "But your companions, your brother?—and that pretty little girl—your sister, I suppose?"
Vance (shuddering). "No, not relations. I took charge of the boy—clever young fellow; and the little girl is—"
Lady Selina. "Yes. The little girl is—"
Vance. "A little girl as you see; and very pretty, as you say—subject for a picture."
Lady Selina (indifferently), "Oh, let the children go and amuse themselves somewhere. Now we have found you—positively you are our prisoner."
Lady Selina Vipont was one of the queens of London; she had with her that habit of command natural to such royalties. Frank Vance was no tuft-hunter, but once under social influences, they had their effect on him, as on most men who are blessed with noses in the air. Those great ladies, it is true, never bought his pictures, but they gave him the position which induced others to buy them. Vance loved his art; his art needed its career. Its career was certainly brightened and quickened by the help of rank and fashion.
In short, Lady Selina triumphed, and the painter stepped back to Lionel. "I must go to Richmond with these people. I know you'll excuse me. I shall be back to-night somehow.
