"That may depend something on how often you see her." "I see her
nearly every day. She is my pupil."

"Mrs. Greyson?"

"Yes," Herman said, a little defiantly, as if now the secret was told
he challenged the right of another man to share it.

"Is she a widow?"

"Yes," the other answered, with no perceptible pause, and yet between
the question and his reply had come to him the swift remembrance that
he really knew nothing of his pupil's life or history, and had simply
taken it for granted that her husband was not living. "Arthur Fenton
brought her here," he added, rather thinking aloud than answering any
point of Rangely's query. "He was an old friend of her husband."

"But what will you do with the other?"

Instead of replying Herman got up from the seat into which he had flung
himself, and went about the studio putting out the lights.

"Go home," he said with a whimsical smile. "I'm sure I don't know what
we are talking about at this time of the morning. As for what I shall
do--Well, time will show; I am as ignorant as yourself on the subject."




IX.