' Voila: hey, presto!' exclaimed Maudie, pressing a button at the side of the proscenium.

The walls altered as if at the touch of a fairy's wand, and a most gorgeous vista of photographic voluptuosity met Charlie's astonished and delighted eyes. Photos of every size were there, very many of them coloured, and most beautifully coloured.

There were no paintings except a life-sized oil of Maudie herself as Diana. That had been hung on the line at the Academy. Charlie remembered it well now: it was signed by a well-known French portrait painter, in fact the greatest of them all, and the discoverer of genius in many an Englishman.

But this picture, magnificent though it was, was quite dwarfed by the variety and beauty of the photos.

First in numbers came the nudes. They were none of them of the blatantly crude, erotic, fucking, all-ends-up type, but they were-well-not the sort that Aunt Lavinia ought to see.

There were many single nudes, very nearly always the model being Maudie herself. For this she apologised.

'You see, Charlie,' she said, 'I have a paucity of models. This great idea is only its infancy yet; that's where I'm looking to you for help. Tubby's no good. If I left him to get me models he'd bring women like cart horses. Tubby has strange ideas of female beauty-why he is so infatuated with me, I can't think.

'No; I want more girl models for the single figures. It doesn't matter so much for the groups, as long as we have good principals.'

The single figures were very beautiful. There was a complete set of Maudie's life-Maudie in her bath — Maudie drying herself under the trees-Maudie in varying stages of dressing-Maudie riding, cycling, rowing, and in various gowns. The nearest approach to anything very suggestive was Maudie with only her stockings and shoes on, but every scrap of jewelery she possessed.