Part 19 (1/2)

MRS. SYLVESTER (_gloomily_).

Clothes sometimes cover a mult.i.tude of sins. They are no guarantee.

Rosaline wore them!

MRS. TEMPENNY.

Rosaline?

MRS. SYLVESTER.

You have not heard of Rosaline?

MRS. TEMPENNY.

No. A model?

MRS. SYLVESTER.

A serpent!

MRS. TEMPENNY.

The wretch. Pretty of course?

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Serpents are always pretty. One day, not long after we were married, I came across her photograph--I was tidying up an old desk of Charles', a photo, my dear, with an inscription that left no doubt what their relations had been. I tore it up before his face; and for a time, excepting for the girlish illusions he had shattered, that was an end of the matter.

MRS. TEMPENNY.

But only for a time?

MRS. SYLVESTER (_impressively_).

Two years ago I went into his studio, and found her there.

MRS. TEMPENNY.

Horrible.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

You may well say so. She was sitting on a table drinking brandy and soda as bold as bra.s.s. Of course he swore that he needed her for a picture he was going to work on--and, I don't know, perhaps it was true. Still considering what had been, her presence there was an outrage, and I shall never forget the quarrel there was between Charles and me. That was the last I have seen of Rosaline--she went flying.

MRS. TEMPENNY.

And was it the last that Mr. Sylvester has seen of her?

MRS. SYLVESTER.

So far as I know. But there is always the lurking, horrid doubt. You know now why I am not the light-hearted girl you remember, and why I distrust artists as a cla.s.s.