Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/142

134 He found a chair for Helen, and stood leaning over the back.

The artist had been right. His picture meant many things to many people.

"It must be Cleopatra," said one lady, who had not examined the catalogue.

"Or fair Rosamond in her bower," suggested her companion.

"And that little dark figure?" asked the first speaker.

"Maybe that's Cleopatra's conscience," laughed the other. "It ought to be called 'The Queen's Nightmare.'"

Just here a tall girl with a Burne-Jones profile drifted past. She cast a long and intense look upon the picture.

"It is an annunciation," she said, "in modern style. The little brown figure is an angel in disguise."

"How can they be so stupid?" asked Helen, looking up. Howard only chuckled. Once he laughed outright. The great Leighton Reynolds, white-haired dictator in this little world of art, paused before the picture.