“You’re on the edge of doing it, child.  It isn’t wise.  It won’t do for us....  I know—­I know, Valerie, more than you know about—­love.  Listen to me.  Don’t!  Go away—­go somewhere; drop everything and go, if you’ve any sense left.  I’ll go with you if you will let me....  I’ll do anything for you, dear.  Only listen to me before it’s too late; keep your self-control; keep your mind clear on this one thing, that love is of no use to us—­no good to us.  And if you think you suspect its presence in your neighbourhood, get away from it; pick up your skirts and run, Valerie....  You’ve plenty of time to come back and wonder what you ever could have seen in the man to make you believe you could fall in love with him.”

Ogilvy, strolling up, stood looking sentimentally at the two young girls.

“A—­perfect—­pair—­of precious—­priceless—­peaches,” he said; “I’d love to be a Turk with an Oriental smirk and an ornamental dirk, and a tendency to shirk when the others go to work; for the workers I can’t bear ’em and I’d rather run a harem—­”

“No doubt,” said Rita, coldly; “so you need not explain to me the rather lively young lady I met in the corridor looking for studio number ten—­”

“Rita!  Zuleika!  Star of my soul!  Jewel of my turban!  Do you entertain suspicions—­”

“Oh, you probably did the entertaining—­”

“I?  Heaven!  How I am misunderstood!  John Burleson!  Come over here and tell this very charming young lady all about that somewhat conspicuous vision from a local theatre who came floating into my studio by accident while in joyous quest of you!”

But Annan only laughed, and Rita shrugged her disdain.  But as she nodded adieu to Valerie, the latter saw a pinched look in her face, and did not understand it.

CHAPTER IX

The world, and his own family, had always been inclined to love Louis Neville, and had advanced no farther than the inclination.  There were exceptions.

Archie Allaire, who hated him, discussing him floridly once with Querida at the Thumb-tack Club in the presence of a dozen others, characterised him as “one of those passively selfish snobs whose virtues are all negative and whose modesty is the mental complacency of an underdone capon.”

He was sharply rebuked by Ogilvy, Annan, and Burleson; skilfully by Querida—­so adroitly indeed that his amiable and smiling apology for the absent painter produced a curiously depressing effect upon Ogilvy and Annan, and even left John Burleson dully uncomfortable, although Allaire had been apparently well drubbed.

“All the same,” said Allaire with a sneer to Querida after the others had departed, “Neville is really a most frightful snob.  Like a busy bacillus surrounded by a glass tube full of prepared culture, he exists in his own intellectual exudations perfectly oblivious to the miseries and joys of the world around him.  He hasn’t time for anybody except himself.”