“Poor Bertha!”

“A grocer’s wife,” said Franks, his eyes wandering.  “Oh, confound it!  Really you know—­” He took an impatient turn across the floor.  Again his wife sighed and murmured: 

“Poor Bertha!”

“Of course,” said Franks, coming to a pause, “there’s a good deal to be said for sticking to a business which yields a decent income, and promises much more.”

“Money!” exclaimed Rosamund scornfully.  “What is money?”

“We find it useful,” quietly remarked the other.

“Certainly we do; but you are an artist, Norbert, and money is only an accident of your career.  Do we ever talk about it, or think about it?  Poor Bertha!  With her talent!”

The artist paced about, his hands in his jacket pockets.  He was smiling uneasily.

“Did you know anything of this kind was going on?” he asked, without looking at his wife.

“I had heard nothing whatever.  It’s ages since Bertha was here.”

“Yet you don’t seem very much surprised.”

“And you?” asked Rosamund, meeting his eyes.  “Were you profoundly astonished?”

“Why, yes.  It came very unexpectedly.  I had no idea they saw each other—­except in the shop.”

“And it vexes you?” said Rosamund, her eyes upon his face.

“Vexes?  Oh, I can’t say that.”  He fidgeted, turned about, laughed.  “Why should it vex me?  After all, Warburton is such a thoroughly good fellow, and if he makes money—­”

“Money!”

“We do find it useful, you know,” insisted Franks, with a certain obstinacy.

Rosamund was standing before the picture, and gazing at it.

“That she should have no higher ambition!  Poor Bertha!”

“We can’t all achieve ambitions,” cried Franks from the other end of the room.  “Not every girl can marry a popular portrait-painter.”

“A great artist!” exclaimed his wife, with emphasis.

As she moved slowly away, she kept her look still turned upon the face which smiled from the easel.  Watching her tremulous eyebrows, her uncertain lips, one might have fancied that Rosamund sought the solution of some troublesome doubt, and hoped, only hoped, to find it in that image of herself so daringly glorified.