"But that," exclaimed her hostess, "is exactly what I complain of. You go everywhere you are asked—yes, and you never express a preference for any particular place; you talk to the men who talk to you, and you make no distinctions—no, for apparently it's all the same to you, whether it's this man or the other."
"Not quite," said Elizabeth, placidly, "for one man amuses me and another doesn't. But beyond that, I don't—thank Heaven! I don't care." She broke off suddenly, and she drew her comb with unwonted vehemence through her hair.
"I don't know why you should thank Heaven," said Mrs. Bobby, watching her narrowly, "for a fact that is quite abnormal in a girl of your age, who has some of the nicest men in town in love with her. There are times when I think you are quite heartless, and yet—with that hair, and those eyes, and the way you throw yourself into your music, you seem to have abundance of temperament. On the whole, Elizabeth, you are a puzzling combination. What was it Mr. D'Hauteville said of you—that you reminded him of a lake of ice in a circle of fire?"
"Mr. D'Hauteville," said Elizabeth, yawning, "is fond of glittering similes. This one sounds well, but doesn't bear close consideration. The fire, I should think, under the circumstances, would dissolve the ice."
"Perhaps it will," said Mrs. Bobby, "when the right time comes."
"Which will be never," said Elizabeth, with decision. Her hostess smiled as one who has heard such things said before.
"After all," she resumed, after a pause, returning to the grievance which had first started the conversation, "I could forgive you everything else, but this indifference about your picture. One would think that when a great artist asks as a special favor to paint your portrait, you might at least have the decency to go to look at it, when it is on exhibition, and all New York is talking about it."
"That's the very reason," said Elizabeth, "why it strikes me as rather bad taste for me to stand in rapt contemplation before it, while a lot of people are jostling me, and making remarks about my eyes, and hair, and mouth, as if it were I on exhibition, and not Mr. ——'s picture."
"Well, it is you whom they want to see," said Mrs. Bobby. "The New York public doesn't care much for art, but it does take an interest in the people whom it reads about in the papers—a weakness that we needn't quarrel with, since it has made the Portrait Show a success, and given us so many thousands for our hospital."
"Well, at least," said Elizabeth, "I have done my duty in contributing my portrait to the good cause; so don't ask me to be present in actual flesh and blood, and above all not to face such a crowd as there was the other day, when we tried to look at it and my gown was nearly torn off my back in the process."