"But you are going to exhibit it?" Mrs. Westley persisted.
"No, T don't know as I am. I should have to offer it first."
"It would be sure to be accepted; Mr. Ludlow thinks it would."
"Oh, yes; I know," said Cornelia, feeling herself get very red. "But I guess I won't offer it. Goodbye."
Mrs. Westley kept the impression of something much more personal than artistic in Cornelia's reference to her picture, and when she met Ludlow a few days after, she asked him if he knew that Miss Saunders was not going to offer her picture to the Exhibition.
He said simply that he did not know it.
"Don't you think she ought? I don't think she's looking very well, of late; do you?"
"I don't know; isn't she? I haven't seen her——" He began carelessly; he added anxiously. "When did you see her?"
"A few days ago. She came to say she could not take the time from the Synthesis to pay me that little visit. I'm afraid she's working too hard. Of course, she's very ambitious; but I can't understand her not wanting to show her picture, there, and trying to sell it."
Ludlow stooped forward and pulled the long ears of Mrs. Westley's fashionable dog which lay on the rug at his feet.