"The devil you did!" retorted Ardly. "I know of no one better fitted for the job. You will begin on your fellow-lodgers, I suppose. As if you had not been treading on our hearts for the last year!" Mariana lowered her parasol and entered The Gotham. As she mounted the stairs she turned towards him. The time had been when the presence of Jerome Ardly had caused a flutter among the tremulous strings of her heart, but that had been before Anthony crossed her horizon. And yet coquetry was not extinguished. "_Our?_" she emphasized, smiling. Ardly grasped at the hand which lay upon the railing, but Mariana eluded him. "Why, all of us," he returned, with unabashed good-nature--"poor devils that we are! Myself, Nevins, Mr. Paul, to say nothing of Algarcife." Mariana's color rose swiftly. "Oh, nonsense!" she laughed, and sped upward. Upon the landing Mr. Nevins opened the door of his studio and greeted them. "I say, Miss Musin, won't you come and have a look at 'Andromeda'?" Mariana entered the studio, and Ardly followed her. In the centre of the room a tea-table was spread, and Miss Freighley, a smear of yellow ochre on the sleeve where she had accidentally wiped her brush, was engaged in brewing the beverage. Upon the hearth-rug Juliet Hill was standing, her tall, undeveloped figure and vivid hair relieved against a dull-brown hanging, and around the "Andromeda" a group of youthful artists were gathered. "How delightful!" exclaimed Mariana, genially. She kissed Miss Freighley, and pressed the extended hands of the others with demonstrative cordiality. "Oh, if I could only paint!" she said to Miss Freighley, in affectionate undertones. "If I could only go about with a box of brushes, without feeling silly, and wear a smudge of paint upon my sleeve without being dishonest." And she wiped Miss Freighley's sleeve upon her handkerchief. "Thanks," responded that young lady, amiably; "but you can carry a music-roll, you know, which is much handier and a good deal tidier." Mariana had turned to the "Andromeda." "Oh, Mr. Ponsonby!" she remarked, to one of the group surrounding it, "don't you uphold me in thinking the shadows upon the throat too heavy?" Mr. Ponsonby protested that he would uphold her in any statement she might choose to make, so long as he was not expected to agree with her. Mariana appealed to Mr. Nevins, who declared that he would agree with her in any matter whatsoever, so long as he was not expected to change his "Andromeda." Mariana frowned. "Mr. Ardly thinks as I do--now don't you?" Ardly sauntered over to them. "Why, of course," he assented. "That shadow was put on with a pitchfork. I am positively surprised at you, Nevins." "On your conscience?" demanded Mariana. "Haven't any," protested Ardly, indolently. "Left it in Boston. It is indigenous to the soil, and won't bear transplanting."