"Oh! I don't know," he answered. "I really thought that that last portrait was a bit like me. Somebody told me I did look like that sometimes when I had a liver attack." "Evie said it was a libel," St. John remarked tentatively. "Ah! Well, I should be sorry to contradict her," he replied, and Jill fancied, though she could not be quite sure, that he looked slightly displeased at the mention of Miss Bolton's name. Why should a name that had once been his sole subject of conversation excite his annoyance now? It was not consistent. Had it been a case of unrequited affection she could have understood his being hurt, but displeasure was something she could not account for; it irritated her, why she could not have explained. She was not accustomed to analyse her sensations even to herself; it would have been wiser if she had; for her instinct was wonderfully true, and her nature peculiarly observant. "You put me on my mettle," she said, smiling. "It shan't be a libel this time I promise you if infinite pains can prevent." "I am not afraid to trust myself in your hands," he said. Jill laughed. "That's very fulsome flattery," she answered. "I was responsible for the libel, remember. Mr Thompkins declares that I shall ruin the firm yet. It is so humiliating because I was so positive at first that I was going to become one of those celebrated lady photographers who have all the best people sitting to them, and can charge any price they like." "It's just as well as it is, perhaps," St. John rejoined with conviction. "Success would make you a horrid little prig, Jill; very few people can stand it." "If Mr Markham were not here," Jill returned, "I would tell you what I think of you." CHAPTER SIXTEEN. Jill had got her canvas and everything in readiness, and was waiting for her model. She had been waiting for about ten minutes, and was growing slightly impatient; she hated wasting her time. St. John was busy in the studio, unusually busy, so that he could not possibly get away even for a few minutes. He wanted her badly, she knew; he always wanted a mate, and she felt rather as if she were shirking. She looked at the canvas in a dissatisfied kind of way, and then out of the window at the people in the street. "I believe," she mused, thinking of the absent Markham, "that I could draw his face from memory." Fetching a piece of paper she seated herself at the table and made a rough sketch in pencil as she had once done of St. John, only in St. John's case she had not trusted to memory. Markham arrived while she was thus employed, and he stood by the table watching her, as she put in the finishing strokes. He smiled while he watched as though he were amused. Jill was grave and very much absorbed. "What a wonderful little head it is," he said.