This impression was still strong in her mind when, some days after the conversation recorded, she went with her aunt to a little lunch-party which he gave in his bachelor apartments. Although he modestly spoke of them as being very simple, Rollinson’s rooms were really a liberal education. He had been about the world a great deal and had carried with him fastidious taste and a purse only moderately filled. As he said once, he had never had so much money that he could afford to buy trash. The result was very happy. Pictures, rugs, draperies, brasses, ceramics, all were satisfactory. “Your things are so delightfully intelligent!” said Bertha, with a gratified sigh. He found himself by her side as she was inspecting a bit of antique silver on a cabinet with obvious approval. “It makes me feel as I have never felt before, what a wonderful thing is taste!” He smiled. “I am more than repaid if they have pleased you,” he said. “Will you step this way an instant? I want to show you the thing I am vain enough to value most of all.” In the corner which he indicated, hung a picture she had not noticed, the portrait of a young man about twenty-five. The girl stared at it with fascinated eyes. “You! Can it be _you_?” she questioned, with an accent that was almost a reproach. Ah, how splendid he was, the painted youth in his hunter’s costume who stood there fixed forever in all the beautiful insolence of his young manhood! What a mass of dark hair tossed back from his fine forehead, and what soldierly erectness in his bearing! How the eyes flashed--those eyes that only twinkled now! He was radiant, courageous, strong. What a hold he had on life--one read it in the lines of his mouth, in his eyes, his brow. What zest, what eagerness of spirit! He was more than all that she most admired in her lover, and he was young--young! The girl gave a strange look at Rollinson and then turned back to the picture again. All fulfilment is pitiful compared with its prophecy, and in that moment she realized this. “It was painted by my friend Van Anden, who died too early to achieve the fame he should have had,” said Rollinson. “All that toggery I am wearing, which paints so effectively, was part of my outfit when I went to Africa with my cousin.” “It is very fine,” said Bertha, with constraint, and then, with an unmistakably final movement, she turned away from it. Rollinson felt a sudden, wretched pang. If she cared at all for him, would not she also exult in this fair presentment of his young years? After the luncheon had been served and before his guests had moved to go, he saw with a hopeful thrill that she had gone back to the picture and was standing before it again, intent and questioning. He went up to her. “Bertha! Dearest!” he said, beneath his breath. “After all, you like it, then?”