“Good work, isn’t it?—though half a dozen of us here at home could do as well, if we had the atmosphere, you know,” said Ashton’s voice, sounding through the rush of waters that filled her ears. “The Senator boasts that he was the first to recognize the artist whom every one now applauds, and he paid a cool ten thousand for it, the man’s first important picture at that! The old man saw it in the new Salon, but it wasn’t for sale. ‘No, no, no,’ said the artist,—‘he had a superstition, a sentiment, a desire to keep it,’—but the Senator thought ‘Yes, yes, yes, the desire will decrease with time and—money,’ and so it did, for this fall, just as the Parkses were on the verge of leaving, the Senator doubled the first offer and Lorenz capitulated. Then, before the ‘brotherhood’ could borrow his ‘luck penny’ he disappeared somewhere in Normandy, they say, to study, out of the depressing sound of the pot-boiling of the Quarter. Half his friends were glad, Ridgeway wrote me, and the other half, being jealous, shrugged their shoulders and raised their eyes, groaning, ‘Another mad American!’ “I have it all down fine, you see, for the papers to-morrow,—great scheme! I had a Harvard chum that was, Tom Brownell, who won’t go the respectable pace his father set for him in finance, and has turned reporter, work it up. He wants news, and, plague it, it must be _true_ or he won’t touch it. Of course I don’t appear in it, but all the credit is socially mine, you see. “Why, come to think of it, Miss Brooke, I believe the girl looks a bit like you! Did you ever chance to see this man? But then, of course, so many charming women look alike in those stunning shirt-waist things, you know. What do you make of the name?” Brooke wished that he might babble on as long as possible, that she might learn the painting by heart and try to fathom the peculiarity of the shaft of light, but as he stopped she said, almost without thought, “Eucharistia! why may it not be the girl’s name?” “By Jove! of course, we never thought of it!” said Ashton. “You’re growing quite pale from standing so long. You must have some punch. Do let me take you to the banquet hall; it’s jolly nice there—all small tables and souvenir menus in silver frames. I planned them, too, though Tiffany’s name _is_ on them. There’s Cousin Lucy, and the Bagby girls are waving to you now.” (“Yes, we’re under way, hold a table,” he signalled.) “We can cook up the concert while we feed,” and offering his arm, upon which Brooke laid her hand gratefully, for she felt a sudden weariness, he led her through the maze of skirts and furniture as skilfully and rapidly as if he had been her partner in the cotillon, and seated her at one of the little tables amid a bevy of her friends, who were discussing the house, the hostess, the flowers, the menus, and the fallen fortunes of poor Julia Garth in a most impartial way, and at the top of their voices.