He could not speak directly of Nancy’s death; he knew what Christian felt for her horses and dogs.  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.  I wanted to try and tell you what I felt—­but since I’ve seen your father and old Mangan, I feel too abject to dare to say I’m sorry—­”

“Why should they think it was your fault?  It was my own fault.  I ought to have gone back when Kearney warned me—­”

“They meant the whole show.  Beginning with Barty’s selling to my tenants, and then your father’s people making trouble, and the Carmodys burning the covert, and all the rest of it!  They’re quite right!  It’s all my rotten fault!  Christian, I’m going back to France!  I can’t face you after what I’ve brought on you!”

In the bad moments of life, when the bare and shivering soul stands defenceless, waiting for evil tidings, or nerving itself to endure condolence, Christian had ever a gentle touch; and she knew too, when it comforted wrong-doers to be laughed at.

“Oh, Larry!  And you pretended you wanted to paint my picture!” she said, looking at his miserable face with eyes that shone as the Pool of Siloam might have shone after the Angel had troubled it; there were tears in them, but there was healing, too.

Larry took her hand and held it tight.

“You don’t mean it—­how could you bear to look at me?”

“But I shan’t look at you!  You will have to look at me—­that is, if you can bear it!  You must try and brace yourself to the effort!”

This, it may be admitted, was provocation on Christian’s part, but, as she told herself afterwards, desperate measures were necessary, or they would both have burst into tears.

CHAPTER XXV

The resolution to return to France, announced, as has been set forth, by Mr. St. Lawrence Coppinger, was not adhered to.  In the first place, there was Barty Mangan and the various affairs that he represented; in the second place, there was the portrait; in the third place—­which might as well, if not better, have come first—­the resolve had expired, like the flame of a damp match, in the effort that gave it birth.

Aunt Freddy welcomed the suggestion of the portrait with enthusiasm.  She had had four years of peace, “careing” Coppinger’s Court for the reigning Coppinger; to “care” the reigning Coppinger himself, was, she felt, a far less peaceful undertaking.  She agreed entirely with the well-worn adage relative to idle hands, and had no illusions as to her own capacity to offer alternative attractions.

“I felt,” she remarked to Lady Isabel, “exactly as if someone had deposited a half-broken young horse in the drawing-room, and had told me to exercise it!  My dear, Christian’s portrait is a Godsend!  But I may tell you, in strict confidence, that, so far, it’s far too clever for an ignoramus like me to make head or tail of it!”

“It certainly fills their mornings very thoroughly,” responded Lady Isabel, rather dubiously; “Christian vanishes from breakfast time till lunch.  I suppose you see more of them?”