Michael watched this favorite of his sister all through the evening. He tried to think that Ayliffe’s cigarette-stained fingers were not so very unpleasant, that Ayliffe’s cadaverous exterior was just a noble melancholy, that Ayliffe’s high pointed head did not betray an almost insufferable self-esteem, and, what was the hardest task of all, he tried to persuade himself that Ayliffe’s last portrait of Stella had not transformed his splendidly unconcerned sister into a self-conscious degenerate. “How do you like George’s picture of Stella?” The direct inquiry close to his ear startled Michael. He had been leaning back in his chair, listening vaguely to the hum of the guests’ conversation and getting from it nothing more definite than a sense of the extraordinary ease of social intercourse under these conditions. Looking round, he saw that Clarissa Vine had come to sit next to him and he felt half nervous of this concentrated gaze that so evidently betokened a determination to probe life and art and incidentally himself to the very roots. “I think it’s a little thin, don’t you?” said Clarie. Michael hated to have his opinion of a painting invited, and he resented the painter’s jargon that always seemed to apply equally to the subject and the medium. It was impossible to tell from Miss Vine’s question whether she referred to Stella’s figure or to Ayliffe’s expenditure upon paint. “I don’t think it’s very like Stella,” Michael replied, and consoled himself for the absence of subtlety or cleverness in such an answer by the fact that at least it was a direct statement of what he thought. “I know what you mean,” said Clarissa, nodding seriously. Michael hoped that she did. He could not conceive an affirmation of personal opinion delivered more plainly. “You mean he’s missed the other Stella,” said Clarissa. Michael bowed remotely. He told himself that contradiction or even qualified agreement would be too dangerous a proceeding with a person of Clarissa’s unhumorous earnestness. “I said so when I first saw it,” cried Clarissa triumphantly. “I said, ‘my god, George, you’ve only given us half of her!’” Michael took a furtive glance at the portrait to see whether his initial impression of a full-length study had been correct, and, finding that it was, concluded Clarissa referred to some metaphysical conception of her own. From the amplification of this he edged away by drawing attention to the splendor of the moon. “I know what you mean,” said Clarissa. “But I like sunshine effects best.” “I wasn’t really thinking about painting at that moment,” Michael observed, without remembering that all his mind was supposed to be occupied with it. “You know _you’re_ very paintable,” Clarissa went on. “I suppose you’ve sat to heaps of people. All the same, I wish you’d let _me_ paint you. I should like to bring out an aspect I daresay lots of people have never noticed.”