Cavigny-Maupré had excelled himself in this the most recent in his long series of masterly miniatures. The tranquil and beautiful face of Helen Vane, as it had been before the blight of disillusion dimmed its ethereal sweetness, looked out at Andrew with serene and steadfast eyes. There was no attempt at striking colouring, no trick of effect. The artist, with the instinct which never played him false, had aimed to preserve the touch of simplicity, of girlishness, which the old photograph had given him as his cue. The result was a singularly appealing beauty, which his more ambitious productions, with all their emphatic brilliancy, utterly lacked. Before he could have analyzed the impulse which prompted him, Andrew had touched his lips to the picture, and in the act of performing this simple homage his fine eyes grew moist. For this was his mother—the pale, gentle-eyed dream-mother he had never seen, but who had given her life for his, and who, perhaps, with the searching vision of the immortals, was watching him wistfully from beyond the immeasurably distant stars!
So, at the dinner-hour, Radwalader found him—sunk deep in his chair, with his eyes half-closed, and the miniature in his hand.
"Hello!" he said. "Come in."
"You look like a drawing by Gibson," observed Radwalader lightly, "over the title 'Day Dreams' or 'A Face from the Past,' or something of the sort. The old, old story, eh, Vane? Mooning over the loved one's portrait?"
"Not a bad guess," replied Andrew, somewhat gravely, as he rose, and tendered Radwalader the picture.
"That was my mother," he added.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Radwalader, with that ready assumption of contrition wherewith he contrived so skilfully to repair his infrequent faux pas.
"No harm done," answered Andrew. "Are you engaged for dinner? I've ordered a table at Armenonville, and meant to send Jules over to your place to ask you, but the time has gone faster than I thought. Gad! it's almost seven. I have been mooning, in good earnest. Will you go?"
"With pleasure. I dropped in on the chance that you might have nothing to do."