weird, exquisite creature, but one couldn't feel sorry for her. I felt much
sorrier for the wretched creature of a husband. It seemed such an
appropriate end for her; I fancy she would have liked it could she have
known. Ah! I shall never have another chance of painting such a portrait as
I wanted. She seemed sent me from heaven or the other place. You have never
heard the story in detail? Well, I don't usually mention it, because people
are so brutally stupid or sentimental; but I'll tell it you. Let me see.
It's too dark to paint any more today, so I can tell it you now. Wait; I
must turn her face to the wall. Ah, she was a marvellous creature!




2


You remember, three years ago, my telling you I had let myself in for
painting a couple of Kentish squireen? I really could not understand what
had possessed me to say yes to that man. A friend of mine had brought him
one day to my studio--Mr. Oke of Okehurst, that was the name on his card.
He was a very tall, very well-made, very good-looking young man, with a
beautiful fair complexion, beautiful fair moustache, and beautifully
fitting clothes; absolutely like a hundred other young men you can see any
day in the Park, and absolutely uninteresting from the crown of his head to
the tip of his boots. Mr. Oke, who had been a lieutenant in the Blues
before his marriage, was evidently extremely uncomfortable on finding
himself in a studio. He felt misgivings about a man who could wear a velvet
coat in town, but at the same time he was nervously anxious not to treat me
in the very least like a tradesman. He walked round my place, looked at
everything with the most scrupulous attention, stammered out a few