Mr. Granger greeted him civilly enough presently, and with the stereotyped cordiality which may mean anything or nothing. Was Mr. Fairfax going to remain long in Paris? Yes, he meant to winter there, if nothing better turned up. "After all, you see," he said, "there is no place like Paris. One gets tired of it, of course, in time; but I find that in other places one is always tired." "A very pleasant ball," remarked Mr. Granger, with the air of saying something original. "You have been dancing, I suppose?" "No," replied Mr. Fairfax, smiling; "I have come into my property. I don't dance. 'I range myself,' as our friends here say." He thought, as he spoke, of sundry breakneck gallops and mahlstrom waltzes danced in gardens and saloons, the very existence whereof was ignored by or unknown to respectability; and then thought, "If I were safely planted on the other side of the world with _her_ for my wife, it would cost me no more to cut all that kind of thing than it would to throw away a handful of withered flowers." * * * * * CHAPTER XXXVII. STOLEN HOURS. Miss Granger's portrait was finished; and the baby picture--a chubby blue-eyed cherub, at play on a bank of primroses, with a yellowhammer perched on a blossoming blackthorn above his head, and just a glimpse of blue April sky beyond; a dainty little study of colour in which the painter had surpassed himself--was making rapid progress, to the young mother's intense delight. Very soon Mr. Austin would have no longer the privilege of coming every other day to the Rue de Morny. Daniel Granger had declined sitting for his portrait. "I did it once," he said. "The Bradford people insisted upon making me a present of my own likeness, life-size, with my brown cob, Peter Pindar, standing beside me. I was obliged to hang the picture in the hall at Arden--those good fellows would have been wounded if I hadn't given it a prominent position; but that great shining brown cob plays the mischief with my finest Velasquez, a portrait of Don Carlos Baltazar, in white satin slashed with crimson. No; I like your easy, dashing style very much, Mr. Austin; but one portrait in a lifetime is quite enough for me."