“Luck? It’s the only real thing in the world. It rules the world! Believe in it? Of course I do. I shouldn’t ever have been anything more than a small shopkeeper if I hadn’t been lucky. I inherited a tiny corner shop in a back street; fate—or the Metropolitan Board of Works—decided to drive a new thoroughfare past my place. Wasn’t that luck? Isn’t marriage all a matter of luck? What man can know anything at all about his wife, until she is his wife and free to show him her real self? Luck! I never trust the man who sneers at luck and talks about the reward of honest labor; he’s a liar or a fool, both equally bad to deal with in business.” “I don’t believe in luck. Which am I, knave or fool?” “Oh, you’re an artist, and the artistic temperament covers a multitude of eccentricities.” The hooting of a motor-horn drew him to the window again, from which a glimpse of the road could be seen. “Hullo! Here’s Alice and Agatha, early birds too. But she’s come to bully you into starting the portrait. Are you going to do it?” “Yes. Why not?” He put down his palette, took the picture off the easel and set it in a corner with its face to the wall, and then went out to welcome his guests, followed by West. “Oh, Mr. Maddison, I do hope you don’t mind my having come,” said Mrs. West, leaning from the car, and holding out her small, daintily gloved hand. “May I come in? I want to talk business.” “Delighted, Mrs. West. Good morning, Miss Lane.” “I guessed you’d come here, Phil,” Mrs. West went on, as Maddison helped her to alight, “but you’re not to stay. You take Alice for a spin and then come back for us. Perhaps Mr. Maddison will come back to lunch with us?” Maddison accepted the invitation, and West climbed into the car. Mrs. West and Maddison watched them till a turn in the road put them out of sight. “Now, Mr. Maddison, do take me into your studio. I want you to tell me, seriously, will you paint my portrait? Phil tells me I should look on it as a great compliment if you do. I like compliments, don’t you?” “Of course I do, everyone does; even when I know they are undeserved; it’s pleasant to be able to please people, and only people who are pleased pay compliments worth having.” “What a jolly room!” Mrs. West exclaimed, as she sat down and looked round critically. “There doesn’t seem to be anything really unusual about it, except the swords and daggery things on the wall, but it looks quite different to other studios. Now, will you paint my portrait, Mr. Maddison?” “I will, with pleasure, if you’ll let me paint it my own way. I always make that condition.” “I want to be painted just as I am. I don’t want to be flattered: I really mean that.”