‘Thanks,’ said Laurie, feeling rather aghast. He did not know what more to say till a half-comic, appealing glance reached him from the padrona’s eyes. Then he bestirred himself. ‘I have been a long time from home,’ he said, ‘and at present my mother goes nowhere; but I don’t know,--pardon me,--where Richmont is. I am so stupid about localities,--I never know anything that is not close to my eye.’ ‘It was called Beecham once,’ said the rich woman; ‘but we are not the old family;--we are the new family, Mr. Renton; and Mr. Rich thinks it only right, when he has bought it, to give it his own name. We are not ashamed of being new people. I have just been talking to our friend here about painting one of the rooms for us,--in panels, you know. She is so clever. I never knew a woman so clever; but that is between you and me,’ said the patroness, patting the painter patronisingly on the arm. ‘She does not hear a word we are saying. I never would tell her she was anything out of the ordinary to her face.’ Such were the astounding manners and customs of the new species of humanity to which Laurie had been unexpectedly presented. It took him half-an-hour at least to realise the unfamiliar being. No doubt there are patrons in England of the type known in old days, when one monarch leaned on his painter’s shoulder, and another picked up his painting-brush. But these are chiefly patrons of the old masters, not of the new; and Mr. Rich and his wife were the specimens best known in Fitzroy Square. When they went in to luncheon the padrona looked more and more flushed, though Forrester was present to wait, looking as solemn as any family butler, and listening with a sore heart,--but no outward token,--to Mr. Rich’s views about art. He had his views, too, as well as his wife, though he was not so immediately audible. It was when he had swallowed some wine that he found his tongue, and then Mrs. Rich was silenced by the more influential stream. ‘Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Renton,’ he said. ‘We’d have been very glad if your mother had come to see us. It would have done her no harm, and it might have done Mrs. Rich a little good. We don’t pretend to be above that sort of thing. But of course all this fuss about the will must have been hard upon you. I’m told you’re one of the rising young men of the time. Stick to that. You may buy houses and lands, but you can’t buy talent. I’ll be very glad to go and see anything you may have to show. If our friend Mrs. Severn is to be trusted,--and I’ve always found her to be trusted, sir,--her eye is so true,--you’ve got something that will suit me very well; and I hope we shall know each other better before we part.’ ‘I did not mean that Mr. Renton had anything to show this year,’ said the padrona. Laurie had never seen her so embarrassed. Was it that the people were overpowering?--or was it----? But there was no time to cogitate possibilities in the midst of this stream of talk.