"Are you an art student?"
She smiled a little.
"Oh no! I am—nothing! … I love pictures of course—"
"There is no 'of course' in it," he said, a humorous curve lifting the corners of his moustache—"You're not bound to love pictures at all! Most people hate them, and scarcely anybody understands them!"
She listened, charmed by the mellow and deep vibration of his voice.
"Everybody comes to see our friend here," he continued, with a slight gesture of his hand towards their host, who had moved away,—"because he is the fashion. If he were NOT the fashion he might paint like Velasquez or Titian and no one would care a button!"
He seemed entertained by his own talk, and she did not interrupt him.
"You look like a stranger here," he went on, in milder accents—"a sort of elf who has lost her way out of fairyland! Is anyone with you?"
"Yes," she answered, quickly—"Miss Leigh—"
"Miss Leigh? Who is she? Your aunt or your chaperone?"