_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Nothing. Are you quite comfortable, here? Have you got everything you wish?" _General Wyatt_, with a glance at the things on the table at his elbow.--"Here are my cigars, and--yes, here are the papers. Yes, I'm all right. But what do you mean by 'nothing'? What--Ah, here's Mr. Bartlett!" As Bartlett comes into the room, the General, since he cannot conveniently rise, makes a demonstration of welcome with his hands. Bartlett has his colour-box under his arm, and a canvas in his hand. "You've been improving the shining hour, I see. What have you there?" II. BARTLETT, GENERAL WYATT, _and_ MRS. WYATT. _Bartlett_, with a smile and nod inclusive of Mrs. Wyatt.--"Nothing worth looking at." He goes and faces it against the wall. "Have I kept Miss Wyatt waiting?" _Mrs. Wyatt_, anxiously.--"It's too bad you should waste your time upon her, Mr. Bartlett. I don't know why we let you." _Bartlett._--"You can't help yourself, Mrs. Wyatt. The wrong is owing to circumstances beyond your control. If I have any virtue it is a particularly offensive form of stubbornness. Besides,"--more seriously,--"I feel myself honoured to do it--to contribute anything to Miss Wyatt's--ah--ah--In short, if she can stand it _I_ can." _General Wyatt._--"It's immensely kind of you. By the way, you won't mind my staying here, will you, to read my papers, while you're at work? Because if you do, I can clear out at once." Mrs. Wyatt, with mute but lively tokens of dismay, attends the General's further remarks: "I don't want to stay here and be a bore and a nuisance, you know." Mrs. Wyatt vanishes from the scene in final despair. _Bartlett_, going up to the easel and dragging it into an entirely new position.--"Not in the least. Some woman been putting this room in order, hasn't there?" _General Wyatt._--"Three." _Bartlett._--"I thought so." He continues to disarrange all the preparations for his work. His operations bring him in the vicinity of General Wyatt, upon whose box of cigars his eye falls. "Oh, I say, General! Smoking?" _General Wyatt._--"Certainly. Why not?" _Bartlett._--"Well, I don't know. I thought perhaps--I supposed--I imagined somehow from something she said, or that happened--it was offensive to Miss Wyatt." _General Wyatt._--"Why, bless your heart, man, she minds it no more than I do!" _Bartlett._--"You don't say so! Why, I haven't smoked any for the last two weeks, because--because-- And I'm almost dead for a pipe!" _General Wyatt._--"Why, poor fellow! Why, here! Take a cigar!"