He decided against his dressing-table as being too intimate a place for
it, and so carried the picture on from his bedroom to the dining-room
beyond, where he set it among his silver on the sideboard. But so
little of his time was spent in this room that he concluded he would
derive but little pleasure from it there, and so bore it back again into
his library, where there were many other photographs and portraits, and
where to other eyes than his own it would be less conspicuous.

He tried it first in one place and then in another; but in each position
the picture predominated and asserted itself so markedly, that Stuart
gave up the idea of keeping it inconspicuous, and placed it prominently
over the fire-place, where it reigned supreme above every other object
in the room. It was not only the most conspicuous object there, but the
living quality which it possessed in so marked a degree, and which was
due to its naturalness of pose and the excellence of the likeness, made
it permeate the place like a presence and with the individuality of a
real person. Stuart observed this effect with amused interest, and noted
also that the photographs of other women had become commonplace in
comparison like lithographs in a shop window, and that the more
masculine accessories of a bachelor's apartment had grown suddenly
aggressive and out of keeping. The liquor case and the racks of arms
and of barbarous weapons which he had collected with such pride seemed
to have lost their former value and meaning, and he instinctively began
to gather up the mass of books and maps and photographs and pipes and
gloves which lay scattered upon the table, and to put them in their
proper place, or to shove them out of sight altogether. "If I'm to live
up to that picture," he thought, "I must see that George keeps this room
in better order--and I must stop wandering round here in my bath-robe."

His mind continued on the picture while he was dressing, and he was so