Mrs. Cloud wore her quaintly unhappy look. She disliked discussing any one whom she could not whole-heartedly praise. But Laura had a way of dragging Mrs. Cloud’s opinions out of her that Mrs. Cloud, always resisting, nevertheless enjoyed almost as much as she enjoyed her son’s invariable assumption that they must be the same as his own. “He’s a very clever young man. And we must be pleasant to him, Laura, for Justin’s sake.” “Ah, I thought you didn’t,” said Laura, with satisfaction. “Now what exactly is it—conceit?” But Mrs. Cloud said that Laura must finish her coffee, because the poor waiter was obviously wanting to clear away. Now it must be confessed that if Mrs. Cloud and Laura shared a prejudice against that rising young artist, Oliver Weathersby Seton, the fault was as little theirs as his. Mrs. Cloud could have forgiven the inconsequence of his manner (she was not to know that he was ‘Weathercock Seton’ to his intimates), and Laura would have admitted that her memory of a long boy who laughed at her and talked with his hands was pleasant enough, if Justin, in the openness of his heart, had not held forth quite so energetically upon his temperamental friend. Oliver was so brilliant, so impulsive, so affectionate, the quaintest of companions, the jolliest of merry-andrews! Justin could not help admiring a character so different from his own in pace if not in quality: and the more he dwelt upon it, the more deeply interested in his own admiration he grew, until he worked himself up in the course of the morning from a moderate sense of friendship to a state of enthusiasm as gratifying to himself—for his temperate nature enjoyed a rousing—as it was depressing to his womenfolk. There is no doubt that excessive praise of other people is hard to bear. There was time enough, however, while they lost themselves and each other in the honeycomb of the Uffizi, and met again unexpectedly as they hunted down Oliver, for Laura to be firm with herself, to scout this ridiculous notion of sticking up her chin at him. Mrs. Cloud was right.... Of course she must make herself perfectly charming to Justin’s friend ... because, though she was certain to disapprove of him, it was absolutely necessary that he should approve of her.... Suppose he didn’t like her ... said sneery things about her to Justin!... Justin was so easily influenced.... Was he? She pulled herself up short. Was he? She had never thought of that before. Yet here she was taking it for granted!... And it was perfectly true.... He was as hard as nails ... you could not persuade him to anything face to face ... but you could drop a notion into his ear, and in a week it would leaven the lump of him.... She knew it. She had always known it. She wondered how she knew? She trailed out of that room (she had lost the Clouds again) to find herself in a long remote corridor that she had not seen before. In a corner to her right a man stood and painted.