Desmond couldn’t bear it.  And in her fright she thought of Nicky.

She knew that she hadn’t a chance so long as he was absorbed in the Moving Fortress.  But the model was finished and set up and she was at work on the last drawing.  And no more ideas for engines were coming into Nicky’s head.  The Morss Company and Nicky himself were even beginning to wonder whether there ever would be any more.

Then Nicky thought of Desmond.  And he showed that he was thinking of her by sitting still and not talking when he was with her.  She did not fill that emptiness and spaciousness of Nicky’s head, but he couldn’t get her out of it.

* * * * *

When Vera noticed the silence of the two she became uneasy, and judged that the time had come for discreet intervention.

“Nicky,” she said, “is it true that Desmond’s been doing drawings for you?”

“Yes,” said Nicky, “she’s done any amount.”

“My dear boy, have you any idea of the amount you’ll have to pay her?”

“I haven’t,” said Nicky, “I wish I had.  I hate asking her, and yet I suppose I’ll have to.”

“Of course you’ll have to. She won’t hate it.  She’s got to earn her living as much as you have.”

“Has she?  You don’t mean to say she’s hard up?”

He had never thought of Desmond as earning her own living, still less as being hard up.

“I only wish she were,” said Vera, “for your sake.”

“Why on earth for my sake?”

“Because then, my dear Nicky, you wouldn’t have to pay so stiff a price.”

“I don’t care,” said Nicky, “how stiff the price is.  I shall pay it.”

And Vera replied that Desmond, in her own queer way, really was a rather distinguished painter.  “Pay her,” she said.  “Pay her for goodness sake and have done with it.  And if she wants to give you things don’t let her.”

“As if,” said Nicky, “I should dream of letting her.”

And he went off to Chelsea to pay Desmond then and there.

Vera thought that she had been rather clever.  Nicky would dash in and do the thing badly.  He would be very proud about it, and he would revolt from his dependence on Desmond, and he would show her—­Vera hoped that he would show her—­that he did not want to be under any obligation to her.  And Desmond would be hurt and lose her temper.  The hard look would get into her face and destroy its beauty, and she would say detestable things in a detestable voice, and a dreadful ugliness would come between them, and the impulse of Nicky’s yet unborn passion would be checked, and the memory of that abominable half-hour would divide them for ever.

* * * * *

But Vera herself had grown hard and clever.  She had forgotten Nicky’s tenderness, and she knew nothing at all about Desmond’s fright.  And, as it happened, neither Nicky nor Desmond did any of the things she thought they would do.