"Thee, Cothin Nelly; pwetty, pwetty!" cried Joy, running towards me and
holding up a huge poster picture from the Sunday _Echo_.
"Isn't it--why--give it to me!" I almost snatched the sheet from her baby
hands.
My portrait! I knew it in spite of crude colour and cheap paper. It was my
portrait, and it was labelled: "HELEN WINSHIP, MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE
WORLD. POSED BY MISS WINSHIP ESPECIALLY FOR--"
And then--the insolence of the man!--there followed the name of the
bashful stranger whose devotion to Art had drawn him to my door! The
fellow had practised upon my credulity to obtain my likeness for
publication.
I threw down the sheet, quivering with anger. I felt that I should never
again dare look at a paper; but half an hour later I sent Boy out to buy
them all, and, locked into my room, I shook all about me a snowstorm of
bulky supplements and magazines.
Having posed for Cadge, I knew, of course, that the _Star_ would
print my picture, perhaps several of them. But at any other time I should
have been overcome to find a "special section" of four pages filled with
half-tone likenesses of me, cemented together by an essay on "Beauty,"
signed by a novelist of repute, and by articles from painters, sculptors,
dressmakers and gymnasts, all from their respective standpoints extolling
my perfections.
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