“It is an ideal head and a good likeness. Memory stands you in good stead. But how about mine? Has it fared as well?” Florian flushed up to his brow, and answered, evasively: “No; it did not please me somehow, and I preferred not to finish it. So I painted out what I had begun.” Desha understood, but he felt that he had no fault to find. He changed the subject by saying: “Have you any curios to show me? Anything new from abroad?” “Yes, there, behind that curtain. Pray examine them at your leisure, and excuse me for going on with my work. It is one of my days of inspiration.” He seized his brush and went doggedly to work on Viola’s portrait, while Desha retired behind the curtain, somewhat discomfited by his cool reception, and thinking: “He has forgiven her, it seems, by his going on with her portrait, but I am still in his black books. Strange, when he certainly knows I was unconsciously his rival, and ought to give me the benefit of that knowledge.” He examined the valuable curios with but a languid interest, while Florian, with his handsome brows drawn together in a vexed frown, and an angry gleam in his dark eyes, painted away with great energy on the beautiful head of his false love, thinking: “The impudence of the fellow intruding here after stealing Viola from me!” Suddenly a low, musical voice came to him from just inside the curtained door leading into the hall. It said, cordially: “How well you paint from memory!” Florian turned with a start and saw, facing him, the beautiful original of the portrait that was absorbing all his energy. CHAPTER XXX. RIVALS STILL. Philip Desha, dawdling behind the curtain, caught the sound of that musical voice, and his heart leaped violently with blended pain and pleasure as he thrust aside a slight fold and peered out into the studio to assure himself that he was not deceived, not dreaming, but possessed of his sober senses. Yes, there she stood! Viola herself--not the rosy, smiling Viola of the portrait, but a woman far more beautiful, now that sorrow and illness had touched her with refining fingers--Viola, pale and slender and wan, with great, somber gray eyes gazing at him out of that exquisite pale face, thrown into strong relief by the blackness of her mourning garments. She had a companion; but Florian scarcely noticed the beautiful, golden-haired young creature as he gasped in deep agitation: “Viola!” “Yes, Florian,” she answered, gently, coming forward to him, and adding: “You see, I forgive you for that night, and bear you no ill-will. Indeed, I have come to ask a favor at your hands.” “A favor?” he muttered, gazing eagerly at her pale and lovely face, his heart beginning to thump furiously against his side, then sinking with futile regret for that night when his revengeful haste had lost him her heart forever. “Well, love and pain Be kinsfolk twain; Yet would, oh, would, I could love again!”