"Oh, come, now," the other responded, with an easy wave of the hand,
"no heroics, if you please. They won't go down with me. She's a
devilish fine woman, and I don't blame you."

"I tell you," began Fenton, "you"--

"Oh, of course, of course. I know all that. But sit down while I say
something to you."

As if under the constraining influence of a nightmare, Fenton obeyed
when Mr. Irons, having seated himself in an easy chair, waved him into
another with a commanding gesture. The artist felt himself to have lost
his place as the stronger of the two, of which he had hitherto been
proudly conscious, and he sat angrily gnawing his lip while his
tormentor regarded him with smiling malice.

"Do you remember telling me one day," Irons asked, fixing his narrow
eyes on the other's disturbed face, "that you could make your sitters
tell you things?"

Fenton stared at his questioner in angry silence, but did not answer.

"Now, if," continued Irons; "I say if, you observe,--if Stewart Hubbard
should chance to tell you where the new syndicate mean to locate their
mills, it might be a mighty good thing for you."

Still Fenton said nothing, but his regard became each moment more
wrathful.