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 appear ridiculous. You might even be arrested on suspicion. But I shall have them sent round. I must give them to you. What would you have me do? When I die they will be sold. I have no relatives. . . no one. My sister is dead these ten years. I have no child. . . nothing. I am alone, you understand, absolutely alone. Would you have my pictures knocking about some art dealer's place?"

She shook her head savagely. "No, you must have them. You cannot refuse. It is the hand of God in the matter. I understand these things because there is in me something of the woman of all time. The pictures are for you. Nothing can dissuade me."

Again the good-natured Lily was forced to yield, simply by the force of the old woman's crazy will. She must have sensed the fantastic, uncanny quality of the entire affair, for she stirred uneasily and put the Byzantine Empress on the floor, face down. The Girl in the Hat lay across her knees, forgotten for the moment.

Madame Blaise had begun to walk up and down the room in a crazy fashion, muttering to herself. All at once she halted again before Lily.

"It was a famous woman who sat for those pictures," she said. "You could never imagine who she really was."

Vaguely, as if she had been absent from the room for a long time, Lily replied. "No. I'm sure I have no idea. How could I? She was evidently a great beauty."

A look of delight swept the countenance of the old woman. "Wait!" she cried. "Wait! I will make it easy for you. In one moment you will understand!" And she scurried away once more into the dusty closet from which she had brought the pictures. While she was absent Lily leaned back in her chair closing her eyes and pressing a hand against her forehead. For some time she remained thus and when, at last, she opened her eyes at the sharp command of Madame Blaise she found the old woman standing before her with the big hat of the girl in the picture drooped over one eye.

The effect was grotesque, even horrible. Madame Blaise had arranged the dress of black stuff so that her breasts and shoulders were exposed in the fashion of the Girl in the Hat;