"My dear girl, could you seriously suspect me of wanting to possess a coloured portrait on porcelain taken from a photograph? Did you think I'd have such a thing in the house--except inadvertently?" "It's a pretty face," she said. "But it's an appalling picture! Don't I _care_ about things? I hope I haven't got any silly vanity about it, but I don't think I ever have anything wrong--I mean, artistically." He looked round the room with the uncontrollable pride of the collector. "No, my dear," he went on, "you've done me an injustice. From you I'm really surprised." "But _anything_, as a souvenir of a person you like very much ..." she said hesitatingly. "Oh, all right!" he answered. "Do you suppose if I'd an awful oleograph of _you_, even--that I'd keep it as a souvenir? Good heavens, Felicity, one doesn't bring sentiment into _that_ sort of thing! You ought to have known me better." She waited a moment. "Then on those grounds alone I'm to consider I'm utterly wrong?" "Rather! Suppose you'd found a wonderful early sketch by Whistler or Burne-Jones, say, of a pretty woman--even then I should never have believed you'd be such a Philistine as to suppose that the person who _sat_ for it had any interest for me. But a thing like that!" He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "How did it get there?" "How did it get there?" he answered. "Last time I stayed with them, Tregelly sent it up to me for my critical opinion on it as a work of art." He laughed. "It made me so sick that I locked it up, and dropped or lost the key, or else I told the man to put it away. As he's an ass, I suppose he packed it among my things. I suppose Tregelly thought I gave it to his wife, and she thought I gave it back to him, as I heard no more about the thing then. But this time, as soon as I arrived," he smiled, "it was passionately reclaimed by both--and I promised to have a look." Felicity clapped her hands. "Then I'll send it back at once, and--will you have a look?" "Good God, no! Never let me see the thing again." He took up a paper as if tired of the subject. "Did you come back to look for it?" she asked. "I came back because I received a three-volume novel wire from Savile, explaining what he called the situation." "Fancy! Isn't he wonderful?" "He's the limit," said Chetwode, laughing. "But you might tell me, dear Chetwode; it isn't really for her that you go there?" "Really, Felicity! I hardly ever see her! She's always busy with her children or rattling her house-keeping keys. Oh, she's all _right_--suits Tregelly, poor chap! Are we through now?" he asked, with patience. "No. Won't you kiss me and forgive me?" "Presently," he said, turning a page of the paper.