"Then may I ask what you intend to do with it?" he demanded. There was something in the dead level of his tone which suggested a white-hot anger forcibly held in leash. "I thought--with Nan's permission--of exhibiting it first," said Rooke placidly. "After that, there is a wall in my house at Westminster where it would hang in an admirable light." The cool insolence of his manner acted like a lighted torch to gunpowder. Roger swung round upon him furiously, his hands clenched, his forehead suddenly gnarled with knotted veins. "By God, Rooke!" he exclaimed. "You go too far! _You_ will exhibit Nan's portrait . . . _you_ will hang it in your house! . . . And you think I'll stand by and tolerate such impertinence? Understand . . . Nan's portrait hangs at Trenby Hall--or nowhere!" Rooke regarded him apparently unmoved. "I've yet to learn the law which compels a man to part with his work," he remarked indifferently. Roger took an impetuous step towards him, his clenched hand raised as though to strike. "You hound--" he began hoarsely. Nan rushed between them, catching the upraised hand. "Roger! . . . Roger!" she cried, her voice shrill with the fear that in another moment the two men would be at grips. But he shook off her hand, flinging her aside with such force that she staggered helplessly backwards. "As for you," he thundered, his eyes blazing with concentrated anger, "it's you I've to thank that any man should hold my future wife so cheap as to imagine he may paint her portrait and then keep it in his house as though it were his own! . . . But I'm damned if he shall!" White and shaken, she leaned against the window frame, clutching at the wood-work for support and staring at him with affrighted eyes as he turned once more to Rooke. In his big, brawny strength, doubled by the driving force of anger, he seemed to tower above the slim, supple figure of the artist, who stood leaning negligently against the side of the piano, watching him with narrowed eyes and a faintly supercilious smile on his lips. "Take your choice, Rooke," he said shortly. "My cheque for five hundred and get out of this, or--" He paused significantly. "Or? . . . The other alternative?" murmured Rooke. Roger laughed roughly, fingering something he held concealed in his hand. "You'll know that later," he said grimly. "I advise you to close with the five hundred." Rooke shook his head. "Sorry it's impossible. I prefer to keep the picture." "Oh, Maryon, give in to him! Do give in to him!" The words came sobbingly from Nan's white lips, and Rooke turned to her instantly. "Have I your permission to keep the picture, Nan?" he asked, fixing her with his queer, magnetic eyes. An oath broke from Roger. "You'll have the original, you see, Trenby," explained Rooke urbanely, glancing towards him. Then he turned again to Nan. "Have I, Nan?"