"Good!" replied Mims with satisfaction. They left the Boucher room, in which the stranger seemed to be absorbed in contemplation, and seated themselves in the alcove, behind the statue of "Triumphant Love." They made a dainty picture in the fuller light which fell upon them there; and they sat on undisturbed until they saw the head of their escort appearing above the edge of the staircase. Mims stood up and called to him, and in a moment he had joined them. "Tired of the pictures already?" he asked, glancing at his watch. "I am not late, am I?" "Oh, no, not a bit. We have only been here a very few minutes," replied his sister, noting that the lame man was now standing in the doorway, and that his eyes were fixed on Gerald. "Read what is written round the pedestal of this statue, boy," she went on mischievously. "Is it true, or is it not?" Gerald stooped over the words cut upon the circular base of the figure. He was not actually a handsome man, but he was, without doubt, distinguished-looking. Mr. Rosenberg senior prided himself upon the fact that his son's face showed no racial characteristics. His features were clean-cut, he was well-shaved and well-groomed, carried himself with dignity, and was usually self-possessed. He stood before the marble cupid, conscious in every nerve of the close proximity of his sister's beautiful friend, and read aloud the couplet: _Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître! Il l'est, le fut, ou le doit être._ "Is it true, Gerald?" asked Mims naughtily. He looked at Virginia. "Is it true, Miss Mynors?" Virginia hesitated. "Well, I think it is, but not in the sense in which this inscription means it," she ventured timidly. "I mean--there is a love which is stronger than anything or anybody--but not _that_ love--not that silly winged boy." She blushed a little as she spoke, and looked so divinely pretty, her small teeth just showing between the parted lips, her shadowy, Greuze eyes uplifted, that Gerald felt his head swim. "I think you are right," he said, speaking with extra gravity to hide his emotion. "Virgie is simply ridiculous about love," grumbled Mims. "She would give away her head, her heart, her hand, anything she had, for those she loves--her mother and her little sister----" "And Tony," reprovingly put in Virginia. "And Tony," teased her friend. "Isn't she a baby, Gerald?" The young man considered her. "Or an angel?" he suggested. There was, to him, something awe-inspiring in the simplicity of this girl. With a face that might have brought the world to her feet, she was absorbed in the domestic affections, untouched, as it would seem, by the admiration she excited. "Well, as the car is down there waiting, we had better be off," remarked Mims, after a short interval in which she had left the two to talk together. "Are you going to take us to Fuller's, Gerald? If so, we ought to move on. You know we must dine early; we are going to the theatre for Virgie's last night."