"Very good, so far, Mr. Gerald Lovell. I thought it possible that you might have some explanation of this kind to offer. I was at the Academy with a friend. When I perceived my wife's portrait on the walls, and that it was painted by a Mr. Gerald Lovell, I said to my friend: 'I will go to this Mr. Lovell, and I will ask him, among other things, who authorized him to exhibit my wife's portrait in the absence of her husband, in a place of public resort, as if it were an advertisement.' My friend proposed to accompany me. But I said: 'No. I will go, first of all, alone. I will see what sort of explanation Mr. Gerald Lovell has to offer. If it is not a satisfactory explanation, then we will go together, you and I.' I go to seek my friend, Mr. Lovell. He is not very far away. Shortly we will return. Then I will request, of your courtesy, an explanation of that very curious dream in which you saw my wife's face at the Hotel de Flandre. Mr. Lovell, I wish you, until then, good day." The Vicomte withdrew, with the same extremely courteous salutation with which he had entered. The artist, left alone, looked at his visitor's card, which he still retained in his hand, with a very puzzled expression of countenance. "If the Vicomte d'Humieres returns, it strikes me there'll be a little interesting conversation." He laid down the card. He resumed the work which had been interrupted. But the work hung fire. A painter paints, not only with his hand, but with his brain. Mr. Lovell's brain was, just then, preoccupied. "It was a dream. And yet, as I told Warren at the time, it certainly was the most vivid dream I ever dreamt." Deserting his canvas he began to move about the room. "Supposing it wasn't a dream, and the woman was a creature of flesh and blood! Then she must have come into my room, and kissed me while I slept. I'll swear that someone kissed me. By Jove! the Vicomte won't like to be told a tale like that! As he says, a man ought to know his own wife's face when he sees it, even in a portrait. And if the picture is a portrait of his wife, then it was his wife who came into my room--and kissed me. But whatever made her do a thing like that? There's no knowing what things some women will do. I rather fancy that I ought to have made a few inquiries before I took it for granted that it was nothing but a dream. They would have been able to tell me at the hotel if the original of my dream had been staying there. As it is, unless I mind my P's and Q's, I rather fancy there'll be a row." "Pardon!--may I enter?"