"I defy you to tell me," said Baxter. "I've simply kept Miss Everett as charming as she is in life."
"Oh, damn her charms!" cried Lennox.
"If you were not the gentleman, Mr. Lennox," continued the young man, "which, in spite of your high temper, I believe you to be, I should believe you—"
"Well, you should believe me?"
"I should believe you simply bent on cheapening the portrait."
Lennox made a gesture of vehement impatience. The other burst out laughing and the discussion closed. Baxter instinctively took up his brushes and approached his canvas with a vague desire to detect latent errors, while Lennox prepared to take his departure.
"Stay!" said the painter, as he was leaving the room; "if the picture really offends you, I'll rub it out. Say the word," and he took up a heavy brush, covered with black paint.
But Lennox shook his head with decision and went out. The next moment, however, he reappeared. "You may rub it out," he said. "The picture is, of course, already mine."
But now Baxter shook his head. "Ah! now it's too late," he answered. "Your chance is gone."
Lennox repaired directly to Mr. Everett's apartments. Marian was in the drawing-room with some morning callers, and her lover sat by until she had got rid of them. When they were alone together, Marian began to laugh at her visitors and to parody certain of their affectations, which she did with infinite grace and spirit. But Lennox cut her short and returned to the portrait. He had thought better of his objections of the preceding evening; he liked it.
"But I wonder, Marian," he said, "that you were willing to go to Mr. Baxter."
"Why so?" asked Marian, on her guard. She saw that her lover knew something, and she intended not to commit herself until she knew how much he knew.
"An old lover is always dangerous."
"An old lover?" and Marian blushed a good honest blush. But she rapidly recovered herself. "Pray where did you get that charming news?"
"Oh, it slipped out," said Lennox. Marian hesitated a moment. Then with a smile: "Well, I was brave," she said. "I went."
"How came it," pursued Lennox, "that you didn't tell me?'
"Tell you what, my dear John?"
"Why, about Baxter's little passion. Come, don't be modest."
Modest! Marian breathed freely. "What do you mean, my dear, by telling your wife not to be modest? Pray don't ask me about Mr. Baxter's passions. What do I know about them?"
