Just then there was a diversion caused by a great knocking on a door in the court. It proved to be none other than Mrs. Pace.
"She has come to spy out the nakedness of the land," whispered Judy to Mr. Kinsella, who had been having a long talk with her. Pierce had had so much to say of this delightful young lady that his uncle was determined to make her acquaintance and find out if she were the kind of girl to be a help to his beloved nephew, or if there could be a chance of Judy's being the type that he had unfortunately come in contact with in his youth, causing so much disaster to his happiness. Judy was in her gayest mood and was enjoying herself hugely, and Mr. Kinsella seemed to find her quite as delightful as Pierce had led him to believe her to be. That young man was looking rather disconsolate since his uncle was occupying the place he coveted. He wandered over to where Elise was examining some of Jo's miniatures. Elise, too, was a little wistful. She had looked forward with so much eagerness to meeting Mr. Kinsella again, and now on the first occasion when they might have had a real conversation, here he was spending the whole time laughing and talking with Julia Kean. She was glad of the diversion of Mrs. Pace's entrance, as it necessarily caused some cessation of what looked to her like a flirtation between Mr. Kinsella and Judy.
Enter, Mrs. Pace did, with a scornful sniff. After rapping sharply on the Browns' door and receiving no answer, she had made her way to the studio where the tea was being held. When Jo Bill opened the door, without waiting to tell her whom she was seeking, she swept into the room, "not like a ship in full sail," declared Judy to her companion, "but like a great coal barge in her shiny black satin and her huge jet bonnet."
Mrs. Brown introduced her to the members of the party with whom she was not already acquainted, but she acknowledged the honor only with a slight quiver of the stiff jet trimmings of her headgear.
"Well, Mrs. Brown! Is this what you left my house for?"
Mrs. Brown made no answer but Molly noticed that her nose was what Aunt Mary called "a-wucken'"; and she was wondering what would be the outcome of Mrs. Pace's rudeness, when Polly Perkins saved the day. He was taking tea to the uninvited guests at Jo's bidding. That young woman was totally oblivious and indifferent to Mrs. Pace's scornful attitude. She was Mrs. Brown's friend and she, Jo Bill, knew how to behave in her own house. Mrs. Pace was seated so that the last rays of the setting sun slanted through the window on her bonnet and the lighted lamp on the other hand shone full on her capacious chest, making the large square high lights of which Judy had made such merry jests. Polly handed her the cup of tea and slice of brioche and then backed away from her, standing with his eyes half closed and his hands clasped in adoration.
"Well, young man, what are you looking at me that way for?" snapped the irate Henny.
"Oh, Madame, you are so beautiful! You must pardon my raptures, but I am a cubist and you are exactly the type I am looking for to make myself famous withal. As I stand and gaze at you with my eyes half-closed, you present the most wonderful spectacle. I see a series of beautiful cubes, one on top of the other: black and gray, black and gray, and now and then where the light strikes, a brilliant white one. And oh, your chapeau! I can hardly wait to get to work on your portrait! You will sit to me, won't you?"
During this effusion, Mrs. Pace sat with a pleased smirk on her face. It had been many a long day since any one had called her beautiful, and no one had ever called her beautiful with such enthusiasm or wanted to paint her portrait. To be sure it was nothing but a small, pasty-faced, long-haired artist, but he was a man for all that, and his eyes were kind and earnest and his voice most appealing.
"I am a very busy woman," she answered gently, "but I will pose for you with pleasure, if it will help you in any way."