Not a stroke, but I commence to-morrow in earnest. I've a model coming this afternoon, and if you'll let me use your studio, I shall knock in enough in a week for old Schercl to see when he calls again. CHARLES SYLVESTER. Why do you want my studio--what's the matter with this? REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. Well, the fact is my wife is always popping in here, and if she found me with a model posed as Susannah she'd go into hysterics. You understand me? CHARLES SYLVESTER. Understand you. I'm a married man. (TEMPENNY _looks at him silently, and then puts out his hand_. SYLVESTER _grasps it_.) REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. I don't want to gush, but--I feel for you, old chap. CHARLES SYLVESTER (_gratefully_). I know--I know. REMBRANDT TEMPENNY (_offering pouch_). Smoke? CHARLES SYLVESTER (_producing pipe_). Thanks. (_They fill their pipes without speaking and puff sympathetically_.) CHARLES SYLVESTER. Not but what she is a good sort--I don't want to say anything against her. REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. Of course not. CHARLES SYLVESTER. But--I suppose she's too fond of me. REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. It's a way wives have--they repay the superabundance of your devotion during the courtship. CHARLES SYLVESTER. Exactly. She's jealous. REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. Of whom? CHARLES SYLVESTER. Of nobody--of everyone. Of my past, which was rather more decent than most fellows--of my life to-day, which is a pattern for a County Councillor. REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. Poor beggar. CHARLES SYLVESTER. You're sorry for me? REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. Devilishly. To be married to a jealous woman!--what a fate. CHARLES SYLVESTER (_with a groan_). Ah! Tempenny, there was a girl I used to know when I was a bachelor--she was a model. My wife found her likeness one day after we were married. A likeness, nothing more--I thought I had destroyed it. Well, if you'd have heard the ructions she made; you'd have thought she'd found a harem. REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. Ah! CHARLES SYLVESTER. A year or two ago the girl turned up again--walked into my studio, and wanted to sit to me. As it happened I could have used her very well. Just as I had given her a drink who should march in too, but my wife. REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. The devil. CHARLES SYLVESTER. I _said_ my wife--but-- REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. Yes, go on. CHARLES SYLVESTER. She recognised my visitor in a moment from the photograph--abused her, insulted me, and raised a royal row. The girl cleared out like a shot, and I pledge you my word I have never seen her since, but from that hour to this not a day passes without Mrs. Sylvester making some allusion to the incident. I am the most moral man alive, and I'm watched and suspected as if I were a criminal. REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. We must see more of each other than we have of late. When I work in your studio we shall be company for each other. CHARLES SYLVESTER. I shall be very glad. Well, I'll be off, now. See you to-morrow then? REMBRANDT TEMPENNY. To-morrow! Au revoir, dear boy.