“You and Mr. Ingle,” she replied, not altering her tone in the slightest.  “But she’s all for her brother, of course, and though you’re his friend, Ingle is a personage in the world they court, and among the multitudinous things his father left him is an art magazine, or one that’s long on art or something of that sort—­I don’t know just what—­so altogether it will be a good thing for dearest Mr. Ward.  She likes Cressie, of course, though I think she likes you better—­”

I managed to find my voice and interrupt the thistle-brained creature.  “What put these fantasias into your head?”

“Not Jean Ferret,” she responded promptly.

“It’s cruel of me to break it to you so coarsely—­I know—­but if you are ever going to make up your mind to her building as glaring a success of you as she has of her brother, I think you must do it now.  She’s on the point of accepting Mr. Ingle, and what becomes of you will depend on your conduct in the most immediate future.  She won’t ask you to Quesnay again, so you’d better go up there on your own accord.—­And on your bended knees, too!” she added as an afterthought.

I sought for something to say which might have a chance of impressing her—­a desperate task on the face of it—­and I mentioned that Miss Ward was her hostess.

One might as well have tried to impress Amedee.  She “made a little mouth” and went on dabbling with her brushes.  “Hostess?  Pooh!” she said cheerfully.  “My infantile father sent me here to be in her charge while he ran home to America.  Mr. Ward’s to paint my portrait, when he comes.  Give and take—­it’s simple enough, you see!”

Here was frankness with a vengeance, and I fell back upon silence, whereupon a pause ensued, to my share of which I imparted the deepest shadow of disapproval within my power.  Unfortunately, she did not look at me; my effort passed with no other effect than to make some of my facial muscles ache.

“‘Portrait of Miss E., by George Ward, H. C.,’” this painfully plain-speaking young lady continued presently.  “On the line at next spring’s Salon, then packed up for the dear ones at home.  I’d as soon own an ’Art Bronze,’ myself—­or a nice, clean porcelain Arab.”

“No doubt you’ve forgotten for the moment,” I said, “that Mr. Ward is my friend.”

“Not in painting, he isn’t,” she returned quickly,

“I consider his work altogether creditable; it’s carefully done, conscientious, effective—­”

“Isn’t that true of the ladies in the hairdressers’ windows?” she asked with assumed artlessness.  “Can’t you say a kind word for them, good gentleman, and heaven bless you?”

“Why sha’n’t I be asked to Quesnay again?”

She laughed.  “You haven’t seemed fanatically appreciative of your opportunities when you have been there; you might have carried her off from Cresson Ingle instead of vice versa.  But after all, you aren’t”—­ here she paused and looked at me appraisingly for a moment-"you aren’t the most piratical dash-in-and-dash-out and leave-everything-upside-down-behind-you sort of man, are you?”