"Er--no. It's in rather a mess here, that's all. I _was_ working, but
I'm quite willing to stop."

"I'm afraid you've no further wish for me now that I'm no longer
useful," she sighed. "You're not going to discard me so easily.
Besides, we're not going to stay long--only a minute. I was hoping
Miss Challoner could see the portrait."

He glanced at Hermia almost resentfully, and fidgeted with his brushes.

"Yes--of course. It's the least I can do--isn't it? The portrait
isn't finished. It's dried in, too--but--"

He laid his palette slowly down and wiped his brushes carefully on a
piece of cheese-cloth, put a canvas in a frame upon the easel and
shoved it forward into a better light.

Hermia followed his movements curiously, sure that he was the most
inhospitable human being upon whom two pretty women had ever
condescended to call, and stood uncomfortably, realizing that he has
not even offered her a chair. But when the portrait was turned toward
the light, she forgot everything but the canvas before her.

It was not the Olga Tcherny that people knew best--the gay, satirical
_mondaine_, who exacted from a world which had denied her happiness her
pound of flesh and called it pleasure. The Olga Tcherny which looked at
Hermia from the canvas was the one that Hermia had glimpsed in the
brief moments between bitterness and frivolity, a woman with a soul
which in spite of her still dreamed of the things it had been denied.