“I am not!” she said, with sudden anger. “No one shall say I’m afraid of any man. You can ask anyone who knows me really well, and you will always hear the same story. I’m afraid of no one and nothing, and I’ve proved it again and again.” “Well then, what’s to prevent you proving it to me, my girl?” “I will!” She lifted her chin and looked suddenly impudent. “What do you wish me to do to prove it?” she asked him defiantly. “If Arabian does come to-day go away with him when he goes. Get to know him really. You could, I believe. But ever since he’s come here to sit he has shut up the box which contains the truth of what he is, locked it, and lost the key. His face is a mask, and I don’t paint masks.” “Very well. I will.” “Good!” said Garstin sonorously, and looking suddenly much less tired and morose. “But why do you think _I_ could get to know him?” “Because he’s--but you know why better than I do.” “I don’t.” “Arabian’s in love with you, my girl. By Jove! There he is!” The bell had sounded below. With a swift movement Garstin got hold of a palette knife, sprang at the sketch of Arabian, and ripped up the canvas from top to bottom. Miss Van Tuyn uttered a cry. “Dick!” “That’s all right!” He threw the knife down. “We’ll do better than that by a long way.” He got hold of her hand. “Stick to your word, my girl, and I’ll paint you yet--and not an Academy portrait. But you’ve got to _live_. Just now, with your cheeks all in patches you looked stunning.” The bell went again. “Now for him!” He hurried downstairs. CHAPTER IV Lady Sellingworth was afraid. In spite of her many triumphs in the past she had a deep distrust of life. Since the tragedies of her middle age her curious natural diffidence, which the habit of the world had never been able to subdue, had increased. In ten years of retirement, in the hundreds of hours of solitude which those ten years had held for her, it had grown within her. And now it began to torment her.