He moved his head, and
Bessie saw a visage familiar in its strangeness. He laid the book down,
advanced a step or two with a look of pleased intelligence, bowed and
said, "Miss Fairfax!" Bessie had already recognized him. "Mr. Christie!"
said she, and they shook hands with the utmost cordiality. The world is
small and full of such surprises.
"Then you two are old acquaintances? Mr. Christie is here to paint my
portrait," said Mrs. Chiverton.
The meeting was an agreeable episode in their visit. At dinner the young
artist talked with his host of art, and Bessie learnt that he had seen
Italy, Spain, Greece, that he had friends and patrons of distinction,
and that he had earned success enough to set him above daily cares. Mr.
Chiverton had a great opinion of his future, and there was no better
judge in the circle of art-connoisseurs.
"Mr. Christie has an exquisite taste and refinement--feelings that are
born in a man, and that no labor or pains can enable him to acquire,"
her host informed Bessie. It was these gifts that won him a commission
for a portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Chiverton, though he was not
professedly a painter of portraits.
After dinner, Miss Fairfax and he had a good talk of Beechhurst, of
Harry Musgrave, and other places and persons interesting to both. Bessie
asked after that drop-scene, at the Hampton theatre, and Mr. Christie,
in nowise shy of early reminiscences, gave her an amusing account of how
he worked at it.
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