“But that was nearly a year ago, Edward. Be careful not to be harsh to her. She inherits--your imperiousness.” Mrs. Staunton hesitated after “inherits,” because the look in her brother-in-law’s eyes reminded her that his wife--her sister--after enduring for eight years the penitentiary he made of his home, fled from him and refused to return, and lived by herself in a cottage at Brookline until her death. After talking to several of her guests, so that her action might not seem pointed, Mrs. Staunton took Frothingham where Cecilia was listening to Gilson’s animated exposition of the true, or Gilson, theory of portrait painting. A moment after Frothingham was introduced Mrs. Staunton took the reluctant Gilson away. Cecilia looked after him, a quizzical expression in her eyes. “Do you know Mr. Gilson?” she asked. “No; I’ve only just met him.” “What do you think of him?” “I can’t say. I’ve barely seen him.” “But isn’t Schopenhauer right where he says, ‘Look well at a human being the first time you see him, for you will never see _him_ again?’” “I should say Gilson was--not very clean, then. Who is he?” [Illustration: “_Then you’re not a Buddhist or a Spiritualist?_”] “He came here four years ago from we don’t know where, and exhibited a lot of his own paintings, most of them portraits of himself in all sorts of strange attitudes and clothes. Everybody ran after him--we have a new craze here each year, you know. That year it was Gilson. A girl, a Miss Manners, married him. If it hadn’t been for that, he’d have been forgotten, and would have disappeared. As it is, we still have him with us. That’s his wife on the sofa in the corner.” Frothingham looked toward the enormously fat woman disposed there, and gazing round vaguely, with a sleepy, comfortable, complacent smile. “How do you know it’s a sofa she’s sitting on?” he asked. “Because I saw it before she sat down,” replied Cecilia. “Her fad is a diet of raw wheat. If she’d been where you could see her at the table, you’d have noticed that she ate only raw wheat. She’s served specially everywhere since she got the idea last autumn. She brings her wheat with her.” “And what is your fad?--you say everyone has a fad.” “Everyone except me.” She smiled pensively. “I’m too serious for fads, I fear.” “Then you’re not a Buddhist or a Spiritualist?” he said, with a feeling of relief. The colour flared into her face. “Spiritualism!” Her lips compressed, and seemed even thinner. Her expression vividly suggested her father. “But _that_ is not a fad! Only the thoughtless and the ignorant call it a fad.” Frothingham’s face became blank. “This is a time to sit tight,” he said to himself. “She’s looking at me as if I were a witch and she were about to burn--no, hang--me.” “It would be a dreary world, it seems to me,” she went on, her voice low, and a queer light in her softening eyes, “if it were not for the friendship and guidance of those in the world beyond.”