"Why not now?"

"It's too serious a question to decide at this late
hour."

"Do you call it late?"

She returned his glance coolly. "Yes; because I have
still to talk business with Mr. Archer for a little while."

"Ah," Beaufort snapped. There was no appeal from
her tone, and with a slight shrug he recovered his
composure, took her hand, which he kissed with a
practised air, and calling out from the threshold: "I
say, Newland, if you can persuade the Countess to stop
in town of course you're included in the supper," left
the room with his heavy important step.

For a moment Archer fancied that Mr. Letterblair
must have told her of his coming; but the irrelevance of
her next remark made him change his mind.

"You know painters, then? You live in their milieu?"
she asked, her eyes full of interest.

"Oh, not exactly. I don't know that the arts have a
milieu here, any of them; they're more like a very
thinly settled outskirt."