‘He looks so changed,’ she said; and began drawing with her finger on the tablecloth.  He saw that her lips were trembling.  A strong impulse worked in him, bidding him go to her again, kiss away her tears, and say—­’Hang everything!  Come with me to London, and let’s sink or swim together.’

Instead of which some perverse cross-current hurried him into the words: 

‘He’d be all right if you’d go and nurse him, Phoebe.’

’No, not at all.  They didn’t want me—­and Mrs. Gibson, poor creature, was real glad when I said I was going.  She was jealous of me all the time.’

‘I expect you imagined that.’

Phoebe’s face flushed angrily.

‘I didn’t!’ she said, shortly.  ‘Everybody in the house knew it.’

The meal went on rather silently.  Fenwick’s conscience said to him, ’Take her back with you!—­whatever happens, take her to London—­she’s moping her life out here.’  And an inner voice clamoured in reply—­’Take her to those rooms?—­in the very middle of the struggle with those two pictures?—­go through all the agitation and discomfort of explanations with Lord Findon and Madame de Pastourelles?—­run the risk of estranging them, and of distracting your own mind from your work at this critical moment?—­the further risk, moreover, of Phoebe’s jealousy?’

For in her present nervous and fidgety state she would very likely be jealous of his sitter, and of the way in which Madame de Pastourelles’ portrait possessed his mind.  No, it really couldn’t be done!—­it really couldn’t! He must finish the two pictures—­persuade Lord Findon to buy the ‘Genius Loci,’ and make the portrait such a success that he must needs buy that too.  Then let discovery come on; it should find him steeled.

Meanwhile, Phoebe must have a servant, and not any mere slip of a girl, but some one who would be a companion and comfort.  He began to talk of it, eagerly, only to find that Phoebe took but a languid interest in the idea.

She could think of no one—­wanted no one, but Daisy.  Again his secret ill-humour waxed and justified itself.  It was unreasonable and selfish that she should not be able to think for herself and the child better; after all, he was slaving for her as much as for himself.

Meanwhile, Carrie sat very silent beside her father, observing him, and every now and then applying her pink lips to some morsel he held out to her on his fork.  He had kissed her, and tossed her, and she was now sitting in his pocket.  But after these eight months the child of four was shy and timid with this unfamiliar father.  He on his side saw that she was prettier than before; his eye delighted in some of the rarer and lovelier lines of her little face; and he felt a fatherly pride.  He must make some fresh studies of her; the child in the ‘Genius Loci’ might be improved.

After supper, Phoebe seemed to him so pale and tottering that he made her rest beside the fire, while he himself cleared the supper-things away.  She lay back in her chair, laughing at his awkwardness, or starting up when china clashed.