"In April, you know, it's simply a
mass of flowers. And then there's the sea. You must wear white.
You'll fit in very well. There are several portraits of you there."
"Portraits?"
"Madonnas, you know. There's one on the stairs really exactly
like you."
Mrs. Arbuthnot smiled and said good-bye and thanked him. Without
the least trouble and at once she had got him placed in his proper
category: he was an artist and of an effervescent temperament.
She shook hands and left, and he wished she hadn't. After she
was gone he supposed that he ought to have asked for those references,
if only because she would think him so unbusiness-like not to, but he
could as soon have insisted on references from a saint in a nimbus as
from that grave, sweet lady.
Rose Arbuthnot.
Her letter, making the appointment, lay on the table.
Pretty name.
That difficulty, then, was overcome. But there still remained
the other one, the really annihilating effect of the expense on the
nest-eggs, and especially on Mrs. Wilkins's, which was in size,
compared with Mrs. Arbuthnot's, as the egg of the plover to that of the
duck; and this in its turn was overcome by the vision vouchsafed to
Mrs. Wilkins, revealing to her the steps to be taken for its
overcoming. Having got San Salvatore--the beautiful, the religious
name, fascinated them--they in their turn would advertise in the Agony
Column of The Times, and would inquire after two more ladies, of
similar desires to their own, to join them and share the expenses.
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