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 ing as he saw one leaping to Olga's tongue. "Restons là."

"Peñaverde has made me look so thin you won't recognize me," said Floss. "After lunch I'll take you all to see the portrait."

"Bon!" said the prince. "What do you think of him, Mademoiselle—you who frequent the arts."

"I only frequent the ateliers," said Olga. "I have no opinions on what they paint in them."

"Raison de plus!" insisted the prince.

"They say his work is very subtle," Olga parried, "but that it concedes too much to caricature. It's supposed to be a Spanish tendency; I don't know. Asa man he annoys me; there's something sinister about him."

Grover glowed. It was more than a relief to know that she resented the Spaniard. His satisfaction with that made him slipshod in his heed of the tone in which she spoke, of the activity of the little folds about her eyes.

The prince was of the opinion that, if anything, the painter failed to allow his subtlety free enough scope. "He would do better work," he declared, "if he broke away from portraiture for a while. It's too easy for him to make money in Paris."

Grover was beginning to see hidden merits in Floss's anomalous husband who had cut off his moustache for a thin girl at the Marigny.