"Tell me where you first met Lord Ernest?" she asked as she came down to the fire.
"At the Savoy, in June," said Paul boldly.
Lady Hermione laughed merrily. Paul, who had not regarded his last remark as one of his best things, looked at her in surprise.
"But your portrait of him was in the Academy in May!" she smiled.
Paul made up his mind quickly.
"Lady Hermione," he said with gravity, "do not speak to me of Lord Ernest again. Nor," he added hurriedly, "to Lord Ernest of me. When your picture is finished I will tell you why. Now it is time you went." He woke the Duchess up, and made a few commonplace remarks about the weather. "Remember," he whispered to Lady Hermione as he saw them to their car. She nodded and smiled.
The sittings went on daily. Sometimes Paul would paint rapidly with great sweeps of the brush; sometimes he would spend an hour trying to get on his palette the exact shade of green bice for the famous Winchester emeralds; sometimes in despair he would take a sponge and wipe the whole picture out, and then start madly again. And sometimes he would stop work altogether and tell Lady Hermione about his home-life in Worcestershire. But always, when he woke the Duchess up at the end of the sitting, he would say, "Remember!" and Lady Hermione would nod back at him.
It was a spring-like day in March when the picture was finished, and nothing remained to do but to paint in the signature.
"It is beautiful!" said Lady Hermione, with enthusiasm. "Beautiful!
Is it at all like me?"
Paul looked from her to the picture, and back to her again.