He placed his sitter in various lights, looked at him at various angles, till he had satisfied himself which was the most favourable aspect the Jew should wear for posterity. Melchior showed no impatience. Vanity, like charity, covers a multitude of—ennuis. And when the sketch was once begun, he talked away amusingly enough of men at Monte Carlo, and their mis-adventures—no, he corrected himself,—their madam-adventures, their cheatings, and pilferings, and quarrels. The painter noted the hard, wicked sparkle in his sitter's eyes, which had never obtruded itself on his attention before. To give full force and character to the face, that expression must be transferred to his canvas.
Of course Melchior had determined that nothing should prevent his breakfasting with the Baring trio at the table d'hôte. The thought paramount in his mind during the two hours he sat to Alaric was how he should meet the English girl who fired his passion three weeks or a month before, supposing she recognized him. He had been too precipitate on that occasion. She had been offended. He must learn Baring's exact position towards her, before deciding how the secret he had surprised could be best turned to his own advantage. This he foresaw might be difficult. The case, apparently, was a complicated one. A girl art-student—and, therefore presumably poor—purchasing clandestinely the picture of this man, whose sister was her friend, and with whom she must be living on terms of some intimacy. His vicious imagination would probably have suggested the very closest intimacy, had not all the probabilities of the mystery been against such a supposition. For one fact
