to be her birthday present. I told her you were so busy I didn't know
when you could begin."

"I would stretch a point to please Mr. Hubbard. I am almost done with
Irons, vulgar old cad. I wish I dared paint him as bad as he really
looks."

"But your artistic conscience won't let you?" she queried, smiling. "He
is a dreadful old creature; but he means well."

"People who mean well are always worse than those who don't mean
anything; but I can make it up with Hubbard. He looks like Rubens' St.
Simeon. I wish he wore the same sort of clothes."

"You might persuade him to, for the picture. But my second piece of
news is almost as good. Helen is coming home."

"Helen Greyson?"

"Helen Greyson. I had a letter from her today, written in Paris. She
had already got so far, and she ought to be here very soon."

"How long has she been in Rome?" Fenton asked.

He had suddenly become graver. He had been intimate with Mrs. Greyson,
a sculptor of no mean talent, in the days when he had been a fervid
opponent of people and of principles with whom he had later joined
alliance, and the idea of her return brought up vividly his parting
from her, when she had scornfully upbraided him for his apostasy from
convictions which he had again and again declared to be dearer to him