I became aware she might have fancied me challenging her as a person
unpresented. "All the same," Outreau went on, equally held, "_c'est une
tete a faire_. If I were only staying long enough for a crack at her!
But I tell you what"--and he seized my arm--"bring her over!"

"Over?"

"To Paris. She'd have a _succes fou_."

"Ah thanks, my dear fellow," I was now quite in a position to say; "she's
the handsomest thing in London, and"--for what I might do with her was
already before me with intensity--"I propose to keep her to myself." It
was before me with intensity, in the light of Mrs. Brash's distant
perfection of a little white old face, in which every wrinkle was the
touch of a master; but something else, I suddenly felt, was not less so,
for Lady Beldonald, in the other quarter, and though she couldn't have
made out the subject of our notice, continued to fix us, and her eyes had
the challenge of those of the woman of consequence who has missed
something. A moment later I was close to her, apologising first for not
having been more on the spot at her arrival, but saying in the next
breath uncontrollably: "Why my dear lady, it's a Holbein!"

"A Holbein? What?"

"Why the wonderful sharp old face so extraordinarily, consummately
drawn--in the frame of black velvet. That of Mrs. Brash, I mean--isn't
it her name?--your companion."

This was the beginning of a most odd matter--the essence of my anecdote;
and I think the very first note of the oddity must have sounded for me in