"How fearfully interesting!"
The newcomers fluttered palpitantly from canvas to canvas and only subsided when Mrs. Cheyne entered.
"Am I welcome?" she drawled. "This is your day, isn't it, Jack? Oh, how charming!" She paused before the sketch of the Baroness. "Why didn't you paint me like that? I'll never forgive you. You were painting me for Cheyne, I know it. My portrait fairly exudes the early Victorian."
Perot kissed the tips of his fingers and wafted them toward her. "Quite correct, dear Rita. Cheyne was paying the bill. Now if you gave me another commission——"
"I won't—you're the most mercenary creature. Besides, I'm too hard up. One must really have billions nowadays." She sank on the couch beside the Baroness. "It's really very exhausting—trying to live on one's income. I'm very much afraid I shall have to marry again."
"You need a manager. May I offer——"
"No, thanks. I shall be in the poor-house soon enough."
"Get Mr. Wray to help," laughed the painter mischievously. "They say he has a way of making dollars bloom from sage-brush."
She glanced at him swiftly, but took her cup of tea from the Baroness and held her peace.
The knocker clanged again, and Mrs. Wray, Miss Janney, Larry Berkely, and Cortland Bent came in.