Then Lydia Rhodes made an immediate request of Truesdale to act as escort; he was her third. She took, in this malapropos manoeuvre, the same delight that a child experiences through the consciousness of being engaged in some mischievous wrong.
"Lunch with us at Fields," she directed him, "and then we shall get around in time to see Jane wiping off her tables and putting away her crockery. We go very simply—we wear sackcloth and ashes. As for the portrait—that can wait a day or two."
Then she told Bertie very solemnly that they were to begin a study of the philanthropies of a great city. But Bertie took her own view of the expedition; Truesdale's participation made it seem rather like an excursion into fairy-land. Now, more than ever, was she under the glamour of this young man's accomplishments; now, more than ever, did she feel the embellishing and decorative qualities of his presence. Not only had she heard the composer sing his own songs; she had lately seen him paint his own picture—and hers. "Why can't you do a little water-color or something of Bertie?" his aunt had suggested to him one day, upon encountering him in an attitude of graceful negligence before the exposition of his own pictures. "It would please her so much. Do you know"—lowering her voice as she looked towards the girl over her shoulder—"the dear child has been down here eight or ten times to see these things? Fancy how much it would please her to watch you actually at work—on a portrait of herself, too."
Truesdale glanced sidewise towards Bertie, who stood in painstaking scrutiny before one of the outlying pictures of his group. A pair of art students in their careless working clothes, stood a little apart with their eyes on the same work.
"Terrible knowing, ain't it?" remarked one.
"Yep," rejoined the other; "awful lot of snap."
"Just knocks it right out, doesn't it?"
"Fearfully up to date, ain't it? Doesn't need any '1893' on it!"
"Full of jump! Why can't we fellows here at home get more of that sort of thing?"
Bertie's heart swelled proudly as she heard this jargon. It was quite unintelligible to her, but she felt sure it conveyed extreme approval. She turned to look at Truesdale just as he turned to look at her.