"Philip Burnett, I wonder if you're good? You ought to be. I'd be good if I could paint like that. I'd work for an age at a sitting, too. How could one ever be tired making adagios in color? Oh!" she sighed, "how good it must be to amount to something!" A procession of agreeable, vacuous faces passed before the canvas, creatures of a common fate, garbed in the uniform of convention, carrying the polite weapons of Vanity Fair, each like the others and as uninteresting. The few who wore the bright chevrons of distinction had marched with the throng for a time, but had gone back to their own. She wondered if it would really matter if she never saw them again; of course, the women--but the men. Would she care? Was there not another life? It beckoned to her. What was Philip Burnett like? Could he be young and handsome as well as gifted? The vacuous faces vanished and in their place she could see this young genius--Antinous and Hercules combined--standing before this canvas living for the mere joy of work. Here was her answer. Was she to flit through enchanted gardens other people had planted, sipping only at the perfumed petals while the honey to be garnered was in plain sight? A voice broke in just beside her: "It's convincing, but I tell you, Burnett, the arm's too long." "Perhaps. Not bad, though, for a new man. You know we Burnetts are an exceptional race." The men moved away and the other's reply was lost in the murmur of the crowd. Miss Darrow turned to follow them with her eyes--what a big fellow he was! with an admirable profile, a straight nose, a waxed mustache, and a chin like the one on the mask of Brutus. Conceited, of course! All artists were conceited. And who was that with him--Mortimer Crabb? Yes, and there was the bride talking to the Pendergasts. "Why, Milly, dear!" Mrs. Pendergast passed an incurious but observant eye over her acquaintance. "I thought you were in Aiken. What a lovely hat! Are you going to the Inghams? What will you wear? Isn't it restful here?" Miss Darrow politely acquiesced and attempted replies, but her eyes strayed toward the Burnett portrait. "Stunning," continued Mrs. Pendergast. "A new man just over. Quite too clever. Wonderful color, isn't it? Like a ripe pomegranate." "Have you met him?" "No. He belongs to the Westchester Burnetts, though. Mrs. Hopkinson. So glad. Is Frederick here?"