Chapter 2 - Page 2

knowledge, have developed happily, for I arranged with Mrs. Munden that our
friend, now all ready to begin, but wanting first just to see the things I
had most recently done, should come once more, as a final preliminary, to
my studio. A good foreign friend of mine, a French painter, Paul Outreau,
was at the moment in London, and I had proposed, as he was much interested
in types, to get together for his amusement a small afternoon party. Every
one came, my big room was full, there was music and a modest spread; and
I've not forgotten the light of admiration in Outreau's expressive face as
at the end of half an hour he came up to me in his enthusiasm. "Bonte
divine, mon cher--que cette vieille est donc belle!"

I had tried to collect all the beauty I could, and also all the youth, so
that for a moment I was at a loss. I had talked to many people and
provided for the music, and there were figures in the crowd that were still
lost to me. "What old woman do you mean?"

"I don't know her name--she was over by the door a moment ago. I asked
somebody and was told, I think, that she's American."

I looked about and saw one of my guests attach a pair of fine eyes to
Outreau very much as if she knew he must be talking of her. "Oh Lady
Beldonald! Yes, she's handsome; but the great point about her is that she
has been 'put up' to keep, and that she wouldn't be flattered if she knew
you spoke of her as old. A box of sardines is 'old' only after it has been
opened, Lady Beldonald never has yet been--but I'm going to do it." I
joked, but I was somewhat disappointed. It was a type that, with his
unerring sense for the banal, I shouldn't have expected Outreau to pick
out.

"You're going to paint her? But, my dear man, she is painted--and as
neither you nor I can do it. Ou est-elle donc? He had lost her, and I saw
I had made a mistake. She's the greatest of all the great Holbeins."

I was relieved. "Ah then not Lady Beldonald! But do I possess a Holbein
of ANY price unawares?"

"There she is--there she is! Dear, dear, dear, what a head!" And I saw
whom he meant--and what: a small old lady in a black dress and a black
bonnet, both relieved with a little white, who had evidently just changed,
her place to reach a corner from which more of the room and of the scene
was presented to her. She appeared unnoticed and unknown, and I
immediately recognised that some other guest must have brought her and, for
want of opportunity, had as yet to call my attention to her. But two
things, simultaneously with this and with each other, struck me with force;
one of them the truth of Outreau's description of her, the other the fact
that the person bringing her could only have been Lady Beldonald. She WAS
a Holbein--of the first