"Oh, Ig!" cried Little O'Grady, much moved, "you're the king-pin sure. People _shall_ know you; people _must_ know you!" He faced about toward Preciosa. "Ah, my fair young thing, he's got you dead. Why, Daff himself couldn't have reached this in an hour!" Preciosa was like most of the rest of us--inclined to take good workmanship for granted; where there was nothing to criticise there was nothing to take hold of. But the words and actions of Little O'Grady--he was now hopping about on one leg, holding the other in his hand--made the matter perfectly certain. Her painter had done a notable thing, and done it easily, promptly, without revisions, without fumblings. His own face and attitude expressed his consciousness of this. "Nobody could have done it better," she read in his eyes; "and you, you blooming young creature, have been the inspiration." He had called her "Mademoiselle" too; could anything be more charming? Nothing save his accent itself,--a trick of the tongue, an intonation ever so slightly alien that addressed her ear just as some perfume's rich but smothered pungency might address the nose. Yes, the first stage in her apotheosis was an undoubted success. All that was needed now was her translation from black and white to colour. Well, the chariot was ready to take her up still higher. "I have found you very easily, Mademoiselle,"--Preciosa felt a sugary little shudder at this repetition of the word,--"I have found you very easily," said Prochnow, casting about for his palette and brushes; "and now I may just as easily lose you." "Oh no," said Elizabeth Gibbons, with great earnestness. "Never fear," said Little O'Grady confidently. "Though the likeness generally gets submerged at first, it comes to the surface again in the end." "Don't risk it," continued Elizabeth Gibbons. "What has been done once," said Prochnow, motioning with a brush-handle toward the charcoal sketch, "can be done once more." Prochnow handled his brushes with the same firmness and confidence that he had shown in handling his crayon. The "resemblance" soon sank beneath the waves, as prophesied, but Little O'Grady continued to ride on the topmost crest with unabated enthusiasm. "Whee! hasn't he got the nerve! hasn't he got the stroke! Doesn't he just more than slather it on!" he cried. "Catch the shadows in that green velvet! R-r-rip!--and the high light on that tan jacket!" he proceeded in a smothered shout, as he nudged Elizabeth Gibbons in the side. Elizabeth had never been nudged before, and moved farther down the settle, after giving him a _look_. Little O'Grady, who never knew when he was squelched--he never, as a fact, had been squelched by anybody whomsoever--moved along after her. "Oh, my! Can't he _paint_! Can't he more than lay it _on_! Did you get that last one, now?"