The table d'hote at the Gezireh Palace Hotel had already begun when Gervase entered the dining-room and sat down near Lady Fulkeward and Dr. Dean.

"You have missed the soup," said her ladyship, looking up at him with a sweet smile. "All you artists are alike,--you have no idea whatever of time. And how have you succeeded with that charming mysterious person, the Princess Ziska?"

Gervase kept his gaze steadily fixed on the table-cloth. He was extremely pale, and had the air of one who has gone through some great mental exhaustion.

"I have not succeeded as well as I expected," he answered slowly. "I think my hand must have lost its cunning. At any rate, whatever the reason may be, Art has been defeated by Nature."

He crumbled up the piece of bread near his plate in small portions with a kind of involuntary violence in the action, and Dr. Dean, deliberately drawing out a pair of spectacles from their case, adjusted them, and surveyed him curiously.

"You mean to say that you cannot paint the Princess's picture?"

Gervase glanced up at him with a half-sullen, half-defiant expression.

"I don't say that," he replied; "I can paint something--something which you can call a picture if you like,--but there is no resemblance to the Princess Ziska in it. She is beautiful, and I can get nothing of her beauty,--I can only get the reflection of a face which is not hers."