A hansom was called, and the pair entered it; they drove swiftly away to St. John’s Wood. Very little more was said on either side, but Forster felt very happy. They turned into the old familiar street, and reined up before the old familiar ‘studio,’ which Madeline knew and loved so well. They found the dramatist _en déshabille_ and very busy, not on the new play, as Madeline had stated, but on a picture--which, on their entry, he hastily covered up. ‘My dear Forster,’ he exclaimed, with real delight. ‘How glad I am! But, upon my life, you puzzle me. How does it happen that----’ He paused and looked questioningly at Madeline, who laughed and explained. ‘I met Mr. Forster when I was sitting for my portrait, and he brought me home.’ ‘Very good of him.’ ‘Was it not? But what are you doing? Painting something! You told me the other day that you did not intend to paint any more.’ ‘It’s nothing,’ returned the dramatist, ‘nothing at all. Only a kind of sketch--a little thing of memory. No, no,’ he added, as Madeline approached the canvas, ‘you mustn’t look at it. It’s a secret. It’s--it’s a--portrait--of--a--young--lady--I--admire.’ Quietly laughing, he endeavoured to prevent Madeline from inspecting the picture, but she was too quick for him, and had already uncovered the easel. ‘Why, it’s _me!_’ she cried, and continued merrily, with a theatrical gesture, ‘I mean “it is I”!--which is the same thing, and more grammatical.’ ‘Grammar was never your strong point, my dear,’ observed White, gently. ‘Well, what do you think of it?’ It was Madeline indeed, but Madeline the child, as she first appeared, with wild, wistful eyes, in that lonely studio. The colours were crude, the drawing incorrect, but for all that the expression was there, and the whole thing was instinct with life. With smiling face and clasped hands, Madeline stood gazing at the likeness; then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, she threw her arms round White’s neck and kissed him, first on one cheek then on the other, while Forster looked on in amused sympathy. ‘You like it, my dear? It was--ahem!--a sort of a kind of an inspiration. It came upon me when I was looking at the play, and, by Jove, I had to do it.’ ‘It is really capital,’ said Forster. ‘I should have recognised the likeness anywhere.’ ‘Of course, it’s only a daub,’ returned White, humbly. ‘I might have painted decently if I had stuck to it, instead of dangling after Jew managers and doing potboilers for Eugene Aram. But you’re fresh from seeing Serena’s picture, and that gives my thing no chance.’ ‘I don’t care for Mr. Serena’s picture,’ cried Madeline. ‘I do not like to tell him so, but I am sure I am not so lovely as he makes me, and I know my eyes are not _green_. I like your picture ever so much the best--and, oh! it was so kind of you to do it, Mr. White. It is just like me as I was--a nasty, little, pale thing, with shock hair!’