Mr. Etheridge painted on, deaf to both of them.
"No," he said, looking at the picture with a cold smile. "It is like him, but it—honors him. It endows him with a poetry which he does not possess."
"You know him?" said Stella.
"Who does not?" he answered, and his thin lips curled with a smiling sneer.
A faint color came into Stella's face, and she raised her eyes for a moment.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Lord Leycester has made himself too famous—I was going to say infamous—"
A vivid crimson rushed to her face, and left it pale again the next instant.
"Do not," she said, then added quickly, "I mean do not forget that he is not here to defend himself."