“Where are you going?” repeated Madame, eyeing him.  “You promised to give me lunch.”

“I regret—­I have an engagement.  Mr. Bentley—­when the sitting is over—­will you kindly see—­Miss Flink—­into a taxi?  I thank you very much for allowing me to come and watch your work.  I trust the picture will be a success.  Good-bye!”

He held out his hand to Bentley, and bowed to Doris.  Madame made a rush at him.  But Bentley held her back.  He seized her arms, indeed, quietly but irresistibly, while the young man made his retreat.  Then, with a shriek, Madame fell back on her chair, pretending to faint, and Bentley, in no hurry, went to her assistance, while Doris slipped out after young Dunstable.  She overtook him on the door-step.

“Mr. Dunstable, may I speak to you?”

He turned in astonishment, showing a grim pallor which touched her pity.

“I know your mother and father,” said Doris hurriedly; “at least my husband and I were staying at Crosby Ledges some weeks ago, and my husband is now in Scotland with your people.  His name is Arthur Meadows.  I am Mrs. Meadows.  I—­I don’t know whether I could help you.  You seem”—­her smile flashed out—­“to be in a horrid mess!”

The young man looked in perplexity at the small, trim lady before him, as though realising her existence for the first time.  Her honest eyes were bent upon him with the same expression she had often worn when Arthur had come to her with some confession of folly—­the expression which belongs to the maternal side of women, and is at once mocking and sweet.  It said—­“Of course you are a great fool!—­most men are.  But that’s the raison d’etre of women!  Suppose we go into the business!”

“You’re very kind—­” he groaned—­“awfully kind.  I’m ashamed you should have seen—­such a thing.  Nobody can help me—­thank you very much.  I am engaged to that lady—­I’ve promised to marry her.  Oh, she’s got any amount of evidence.  I’ve been an ass—­and worse.  But I can’t get out of it.  I don’t mean to try to get out of it.  I promised of my own free will.  Only I’ve found out now I can never live with her.  Her temper is fiendish.  It degrades her—­and me.  But you saw!  She has made my life a burden to me lately, because I wouldn’t name a day for us to be married.  I wanted to see my father quietly first—­without my mother knowing—­and I have been thinking how to manage it—­and funking it of course—­I always do funk things.  But what she did just now has settled it—­it has been blowing up for a long time.  I shall marry her—­at a registry office—­as soon as possible.  Then I shall separate from her, and—­I hope—­never see her again.  The lawyers will arrange that—­and money!  Thank you—­it’s awfully good of you to want to help me—­but you can’t—­nobody can.”

Doris had drawn her companion into her uncle’s small dining-room and closed the door.  She listened to his burst of confidence with a puzzled concern.