“Oh, Eustace, let me go!  Here is Scott!”

He did not release her instantly.  Scott was already in the doorway before, like a frightened fawn, she leapt from his grasp.  She heard Eustace laugh again, and somehow his laugh had a note of insolence.

“Come in, my good brother!” he said.  “My lady is just about to make tea.  I presume that is what you have come for.”

“The presumption is correct,” said Scott.

He came forward in his quiet, unhurried fashion, and paused at the table to open the tea-caddy for Dinah.

She thanked him with trembling lips, her eyes cast down, her face on fire.

Eustace lounged back on the settee and watched her.  He frowned momentarily when Scott sat down beside him, leaving her a low chair by the tea-tray.

Dinah’s hands fluttered among the cups.  She was painfully ill at ease.  But in a second or two Scott’s placid voice came into the silence, and at once her distress began to subside.

“Have you decided about the decoration of this room yet?” he asked.  “I always thought this dead-white rather cold.”

“Dinah is to have her own choice,” said Sir Eustace.

“I would like shell-pink,” said Dinah, without looking up.  “Don’t you think that would be nice with those pretty water-colour sketches?”

She spoke diffidently.  No one had ever deferred to her taste before.

Sir Eustace laughed in his slightly supercilious way.  “Do you know who is responsible for those pretty sketches, my red, red rose?”

She glanced up nervously.  “Not—­not—­are they yours, Scott?”

“They are,” said Scott, with a smile.

She met his eyes for an instant, and was surprised by their gravity.  “Oh, I do like them,” she said.  “I wonder I didn’t guess.  They are so beautifully finished, so—­complete.”

“I am glad you like them,” said Scott.  “I thought you might want to turn them out as lumber.”

“As if I should!” she said.  “I love them—­every one of them.  I shall love them better still now I know they are yours.”

“Thank you,” said Scott.

Eustace turned his attention to him.  “No one ever paid you such a compliment as that before, my good Stumpy,” he observed.  “If everyone saw you in that light, you’d be a great artist by now.”

“I wonder,” said Scott.

Dinah sent him another swift glance.  She seemed on the verge of speech, but checked herself, and there fell a brief silence.

It was broken by the entrance of a servant.  “If you please, Sir Eustace, Mr. Grey is in the library and would be glad if you could spare him a few minutes.”

Sir Eustace uttered an impatient exclamation.  “You go and see what he wants, Stumpy!” he said.

But Scott remained seated.  “I know what he wants, my dear chap, and it’s something that only you can give.  He has come about Bob Jelf who was caught poaching last week.  He wants you to give the fellow as light a sentence as possible on account of his wife.”