She stopped abruptly, and Mrs. Barton, who already suspected her of
secret criticism, whispered, as she glided across the room:

'Now, my dear girl, go and talk to Milord and make yourself agreeable.'

The girl felt she was incapable of this, and it pained her to listen to
her sister's facile hilarity, and her mother's coaxing observations.
Milord did not, however, neglect her; he made suitable remarks
concerning her school successes, and asked appropriate questions anent
her little play of _King Cophetua_. But whatever interest the subject
possessed was found in the fact that Olive had taken the part of the
Princess; and, re-arranging the story a little, Mrs. Barton declared,
with a shower of little laughs, and many waves of the white hands, that
'my lady there had refused a King; a nice beginning, indeed, and a
pleasant future for her chaperon.'

The few books the house possessed lay on the drawing-room table, or were
piled, in dusty confusion, in the bookcase in Mr. Barton's studio; and,
thinking of them, Alice determined she would pay her father a visit in
his studio.

At her knock he ceased singing _Il Balen_, and cried, 'Come in!'

'I beg your pardon, papa; I'm afraid I am interrupting you.'

'Not at all--not at all, I assure you; come in. I will have a cigarette;
there is nothing like reconsidering one's work through the smoke of a
cigarette. The most beautiful pictures I have ever seen I have seen in
the smoke of a cigarette; nothing can beat those, particularly if you
are lying back looking up at a dirty ceiling.'