“Don’t bother about money; just let me tell you what to pack and what to leave behind. Collin goes to sketch near Barcelona and we may take the same steamer over—wouldn’t that be a lark? Collin is the nicest courier I know, besides being the greatest portrait painter. I suppose he will give his next season’s subjects Spanish coloring and a red rose just tumbling off their left ear à la Carmen. One year he did Russia and I vow every western society woman he painted had the mysterious air of stilettos concealed in fans and poisoned cigarettes that Moscow alone can impart. He’ll run out of countries by and by, as France, Italy and England are old stories.” “Can’t he paint people just as they are?” “That’s the trouble. He would if he was not careful to have a supply of ‘atmosphere’ to shoot into muddy complexions and wriggling noses and to blur softly over deep-seated moles and other excess facial baggage. I am the only woman he ever painted without thought for future commissions.” “Did he ever paint Mr. Hobart?” she wondered if she betrayed a blush. “Haven’t you seen? But, then, you’ve never been at Parva Sed Apta. It was Bliss’s portrait that gave Collin his sudden rise. When you look at it, you will understand.” Ernestine fell to telling of Sam Sparling’s early stage days and her own début when she actually had worn white net with pearls, following by a dissertation on Polly’s angelic stubbornness and hopelessness and on how she planned to snub Caleb if he wrote a sequel to “Victorious Victoria” and advice about the attitude Thurley had best take towards her future associates at the opera house. “Won’t we be terribly intimate?” she asked in surprise. “Dear, no! Oh, you’ll have pictures taken together in loving attitudes, go to parties and all that—send each other flowers at proper times. But you’ll never be like the ‘family’ towards each other and, when you are older, you will realize the singular honor it has been to become one of the family so readily. You may loathe the tenor who sings _Romeo_ to your _Juliet_ and the woman who is leading contralto may be a deadly enemy—but that matters nothing. You sing your rôle and leave it and your art personality behind in your dressing-room. You will find that the others also have their own affairs, interests and opinions. They are not keen for the advent of a new, charming _diva_ of whom they are certain to be jealous and angry of success so swiftly, easily achieved. You are a musical phenomenon, Thurley, and, as there are not many in any one generation, you must be guided accordingly.” “Please tell me how the ‘family’ started.” Thurley had not yet reached the stage where talking of herself and her accomplishments was of keen interest.