"We must look at something or Ashley Greaves will be furious."

They made their way into the galleries, which were almost impassable. In the distance Lady Holme caught sight of Miss Schley with Mrs. Wolfstein.

They were surrounded by young men. She looked hard at the American's pale face, saying to herself, "Is that like me? Is that like me?" Her conversation with Robin Pierce had made her feel excited. She had not shown it. She had seemed, indeed, almost oddly indifferent. But something combative was awake within her. She wondered whether the American was consciously imitating her. What an impertinence! But Miss Schley was impertinence personified. Her impertinence was her _raison d'etre_. Without it she would almost cease to be. She would at any rate be as nothing.

Followed by Robin, Lady Holme made her way slowly towards the Jewess and the American.

They were now standing together before the pictures, and had been joined by Ashley Greaves, who was beginning to look very warm and expressive, despite his cavalry moustache. Their backs were towards the room, and Lady Holme and Robin drew near to them without being perceived. Mrs.

Wolfstein had a loud voice and did not control it in a crowd. On the contrary, she generally raised it, as if she wished to be heard by those whom she was not addressing.

"Sargent invariably brings out the secret of his sitters," she was saying to Ashley Greaves as Lady Holme and Robin came near and stood for an instant wedged in by people, unable to move forward or backward.

"You've brought out the similarities between Pimpernel and Lady Holme.

I never saw anything so clever. You show us not only what we all saw but what we all passed over though it was there to see. There is an absurd likeness, and you've blazoned it."

Robin stole a glance at his companion. Ashley Greaves said, in a thin voice that did not accord with his physique:

"My idea was to indicate the strong link there is between the English woman and the American woman. If I may say so, these two portraits, as it were, personify the two countries, and--er--and--er--"

His mind appeared to give way. He strove to continue, to say something memorable, conscious of his conspicuous and central position. But his intellect, possibly over-heated and suffering from lack of air, declined to back him up, and left him murmuring rather hopelessly:

"The one nation--er--and the other--yes--the give and take--the give and take. You see my meaning? Yes, yes."

Miss Schley said nothing. She looked at Lady Holme's portrait and at hers with serenity, and seemed quite unconscious of the many eyes fastened upon her.

"You feel the strong link, I hope, Pimpernel?" said Mrs. Wolfstein, with her most violent foreign accent. "Hands across the Herring Pond!"

"Mr. Greaves has been too cute for words," she replied. "I wish Lady Holme could cast her eye on them."

She looked up at nothing, with a sudden air of seeing something interesting that was happening along way off.

"Philadelphia!" murmured Mrs. Wolfstein, with an undercurrent of laughter.

It was very like Lady Holme's look when she was singing. Robin Pierce saw it and pressed his lips together. At this moment the crowd shifted and left a gap through which Lady Holme immediately glided towards Ashley Greaves. He saw her and came forward to meet her with eagerness, holding out his hand, and smiling mechanically with even more than his usual intention.

"What a success!" she said.

"If it is, your portrait makes it so."

"And where is my portrait?"

Robin Pierce nipped in the bud a rather cynical smile. The painter wiped his forehead with a white silk handkerchief.

"Can't you guess? Look where the crowd is thickest."

The people had again closed densely round the two pictures.

"You are an artist in more ways than one, I'm afraid," said Lady Holme.

"Don't turn my head more than the heat has."

The searching expression, that indicated the strong desire to say something memorable, once more contorted the painter's face.

"He who would essay to fix beauty on canvas," he began, in a rather piercing voice, "should combine two gifts."

He paused and lifted his upper lip two or three times, employing his under-jaw as a lever.

"Yes?" said Lady Holme, encouragingly.

"The gift of the brush which perpetuates and the gift of--er--gift of the--"

His intellect once more retreated from him into some distant place and left him murmuring:

"Beauty demands all, beauty demands all. Yes, yes! Sacrifice! Sacrifice!

Isn't it so?"

He tugged at his large moustache, with an abrupt assumption of the cavalry officer's manner, which he doubtless deemed to be in accordance with his momentary muddle-headedness.

"And you give it what it wants most--the touch of the ideal. It blesses you. Can we get through?"

She had glanced at Robin while she spoke the first words. Ashley Greaves, with an expression of sudden relief, began very politely to hustle the crowd, which yielded to his persuasive shoulders, and Lady Holme found herself within looking distance of the two portraits, and speaking distance of Mrs. Wolfstein and Miss Schley. She greeted them with a nod that was more gay and friendly than her usual salutations to women, which often lacked _bonhomie_. Mrs. Wolfstein's too expressive face lit up.

"The sensation is complete!" she exclaimed loudly.

"Hope you're well," murmured Miss Schley, letting her pale eyes rest on Lady Holme for about a quarter of a second, and then becoming acutely attentive to vacancy.

Lady Holme was now in front of the pictures. She looked at Miss Schley's portrait with apparent interest, while Mrs. Wolfstein looked at her with an interest that was maliciously real.

"Well?" said Mrs. Wolfstein. "Well?"

"There's an extraordinary resemblance!" said Lady Holme. "It's wonderfully like."

"Even you see it! Ashley, you ought to be triumphant--"

"Wonderfully like--Miss Schley," added Lady Holme, cutting gently through Mrs. Wolfstein's rather noisy outburst.

She turned to the American.

"I have been wondering whether you won't come in one day and see my little home. Everyone wants you, I know, but if you have a minute some Wednesday--"

"I'll be delighted."

"Next Wednesday, then?"

"Thanks. Next Wednesday."

"Cadogan Square--the red book will tell you. But I'll send cards. I must be running away now."

When she had gone, followed by Robin, Mrs. Wolfstein said to Miss Schley:

"She's been conquered by fear of Philadelphia."