And then, one morning, some two or three days before the end of the month she received a letter from Wyndham, who had dined with them the evening before, announcing that he would be absent from the studio the whole day practically, as he had made club engagements for the entire afternoon and evening. As, too, he would be lunching out, it would not be worth her while to come to the studio at all on that day. He was sorry he had forgotten to mention all this when saying goodbye, but he was scribbling the note immediately on entry, and in a hurry to catch the post.
This letter gave Alice food for reflection. She did not attach any significance to the alleged club engagements; she had never grudged him the occasional evenings he spent in that way, since it kept him in touch with the art-world. But in this present instance there was certainly a suggestion of anxiety on his part that she should keep away from the studio over the day. "Ah—I understand!" she flashed, clenching her fingers; "Lady Lakeden's portrait is to be brought there to-day, and he does not wish me to see it! She is beautiful—beautiful!—he fears her beauty will sting me to jealousy."
He had never wished her to see the portrait! Had he not always turned the conversation whenever she had mentioned it? And only last night, as if in anticipation of so natural a desire on her part, he had had to confess that it was finished, but had added that it was going straight to Paris, as he preferred to feel it was safe there in the hands of his agent. He had thus led her to conclude that the picture would not be passing through the studio at all; but, with his letter now before her, she felt certain that his aim was to get the portrait framed, to touch it up, and then send it off without showing it to her.
But she had the right to see it, if she so desired, she told herself bitterly. If the Salon accepted it, nothing could prevent her going to Paris with her mother; though so enterprising an adventure was quite outside the habits of their life—a consideration on which he was counting, perhaps. But the Salon might not accept it, and in any case two or three months might elapse before such a possible visit, and in that time who could say how things might turn?
Entrance to the studio was a privilege that had been freely bestowed upon her. He had not forbidden her to come; he had merely tried to stop her by suggestion and diplomacy. But she would not be denied.
She would meet strategy with strategy: she would take care to arrive late in the evening, so as to be alone there. In the afternoon, or earlier in the evening, there was the danger of just catching him between his engagements, since he would no doubt come home to change.
She would see the portrait at her leisure; she would at last study the features of the woman—the beautiful, brilliant woman—who had unwittingly robbed her.
"And I have no beauty," she sobbed; "I am plain and insignificant. I have no cleverness, no experience; not one little weapon to fight with, to win him back to me!"