 Felix looked round at the circle, as if to call their attention
to these interesting points. Mr. Wentworth grew visibly paler. »I should like to
do you as an old prelate, an old cardinal, or the prior of an order.«
    »A prelate, a cardinal?« murmured Mr. Wentworth. »Do you refer to the Roman
Catholic priesthood?«
    »I mean an old ecclesiastic who should have led a pure, abstinent life. Now
I take it that has been the case with you, sir; one sees it in your face,« Felix
proceeded. »You have been very - a - very moderate. Don't you think one always
sees that in a man's face?«
    »You see more in a man's face than I should think of looking for,« said Mr.
Wentworth coldly.
    The Baroness rattled her fan, and gave her brilliant laugh. »It is a risk to
look so close!« she exclaimed. »My uncle has some peccadilloes on his
conscience.« Mr. Wentworth looked at her, painfully at a loss; and in so far as
the signs of a pure and abstinent life were visible in his face they were then
probably peculiarly manifest. »You are a beau vieillard, dear uncle,« said
Madame Münster, smiling with her foreign eyes.
    »I think you are paying me a compliment,« said the old man.
    »Surely, I am not the first woman that ever did so!« cried the Baroness.
    »I think you are,« said Mr. Wentworth gravely. And turning to Felix he
added, in the same tone, »Please don't take my likeness. My children have my
daguerreotype. That is quite satisfactory.«
    »I won't promise,« said Felix, »not to work your head into something!«
    Mr. Wentworth looked at him and then at all the others; then he got up and
slowly walked away.
    »Felix,« said Gertrude, in the silence that followed, »I wish you would
paint my portrait.«
    Charlotte wondered whether Gertrude was right in wishing this; and she
looked at Mr. Brand as the most legitimate way of ascertaining. Whatever
Gertrude did or said, Charlotte always looked at Mr. Brand. It was a standing
pretext for looking at Mr. Brand - always, as Charlotte thought, in the interest
of Gertrude's welfare. It is true that she felt a tremulous interest in Gertrude
being right; for Charlotte, in her small, still way, was
