“Sargent invariably brings out the secret of his sitters,” she was saying to Ashley Greaves as Lady Holme and Robin came near and stood for an instant wedged in by people, unable to move forward or backward. “You’ve brought out the similarities between Pimpernel and Lady Holme. I never saw anything so clever. You show us not only what we all saw but what we all passed over though it was there to see. There is an absurd likeness, and you’ve blazoned it.”
Robin stole a glance at his companion. Ashley Greaves said, in a thin voice that did not accord with his physique:
“My idea was to indicate the strong link there is between the English woman and the American woman. If I may say so, these two portraits, as it were, personify the two countries, and--er--and--er--”
His mind appeared to give way. He strove to continue, to say something memorable, conscious of his conspicuous and central position. But his intellect, possibly over-heated and suffering from lack of air, declined to back him up, and left him murmuring rather hopelessly:
“The one nation--er--and the other--yes--the give and take--the give and take. You see my meaning? Yes, yes.”
Miss Schley said nothing. She looked at Lady Holme’s portrait and at hers with serenity, and seemed quite unconscious of the many eyes fastened upon her.
“You feel the strong link, I hope, Pimpernel?” said Mrs. Wolfstein, with her most violent foreign accent. “Hands across the Herring Pond!”
“Mr. Greaves has been too cute for words,” she replied. “I wish Lady Holme could cast her eye on them.”
She looked up at nothing, with a sudden air of seeing something interesting that was happening along way off.
“Philadelphia!” murmured Mrs. Wolfstein, with an undercurrent of laughter.
It was very like Lady Holme’s look when she was singing. Robin Pierce saw it and pressed his lips together. At this moment the crowd shifted and left a gap through which Lady Holme immediately glided towards Ashley Greaves. He saw her and came forward to meet her with eagerness, holding out his hand, and smiling mechanically with even more than his usual intention.
Robin Pierce nipped in the bud a rather cynical smile. The painter wiped his forehead with a white silk handkerchief.