Chapter XI

A PRIME reason, we must add, why sundry impres
sions were not to be fully present to the girl till later
on was that they yielded at this stage, with an effect
of sharp supersession, to a detached quarter of an
hour her only one with Lord Mark. " Have you
seen the picture in the house, the beautiful one that's
so like you? " he was asking that as he stood be
fore her; having come up at last with his smooth
intimation that any wire he had pulled and yet
wanted not to remind her of wasn't quite a reason for
his having no joy at all.

"I ve been through rooms and I ve seen pictures.
But if I'm like anything so beautiful as most of
them seemed to me!" It needed in short for
Milly some evidence, which he only wanted to sup
ply. She was the image of the wonderful Bron-
zino, which she must have a look at on every ground.
He had thus called her off and led her away; the
more easily that the house within was above all what
had already drawn round her its mystic circle.
Their progress, meanwhile, was not of the straight-
est; it was an advance, without haste, through in
numerable natural pauses and soft concussions, de
termined for the most part by the appearance before
them of ladies and gentlemen, singly, in couples, in

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v?