There was no response, and, as Fred rapped the second time, a
carpenter who was at work on the casing of a door near by looked up,
and said,--
"Mr. Fenton has a sitter, sir."
"He is in then?" said Rangely.
"Yes," answered John Stanton, straightening himself up, with his plane
in his hand, "but since Mrs. Herman went in half an hour ago, he hasn't
opened the door to anybody."
"Mrs. Herman?" echoed Rangely, in astonishment.
"Yes, sir."
It was a capricious fate which brought John Stanton to tangle the web
of Fenton's life. His brother Orin's relations with artists had given
John a sort of acquaintanceship with them at second-hand, a kind of
vicarious proprietorship in the privileges of art circles. He had long
known Fenton by sight, while that he recognized Mrs. Herman also was
the result of accident. He had been standing with Orin a few days
before on a street corner, when the sculptor had lifted his hat to Mrs.
Herman and named her in answer to John's question. There had not been
in his honest mind the faintest tinge of suspicion when he saw her
enter the studio, and he never had any intimation of the mischief he
had clone in mentioning her name to Rangely.
Fred and Miss Merrivale went on to Tom Bentley's curio-crowded rooms,
while the sound of their knock still lingered in the double ears of the
two people who sat confronting each other within the studio, with looks
on the one hand sullen; on the other, pleading.
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