her “ideas.”  Then—­like Susan—­she could harangue a little, and grow vehement—­as she had at Duddon that day, talking of the new independence of women.  But neither her gentleness nor her vehemence seemed to have any relation to what a man—­or men—­might desire of her.  She lived for herself; not indeed in any selfish sense; for it was plain that she was an affectionate daughter and sister; but simply the world was so interesting to her in other ways that she seemed to have no need of men and matrimony.  And as to money, luxury, a great train de vie—­he had felt from the beginning that those things mattered nothing at all to her.  It might be inexperience, it might be something loftier.  But, at any rate, if she were to be bribed, it must be with goods of another kind.

As to himself, he only knew that from his first sight of her at the Hunt Ball, she had filled his thoughts.  Her delicate, pale beauty, lit by those vivacious eyes; so quiet, so feminine, yet with its suggestion of something unconquerable, moving in a world apart—­he could not define it in any such words; but there it was, the attraction, the lure.  Something difficult; something delightful!  A dear woman, a woman to be loved; and yet a thorn hedge surrounding her—­how else can one put the eternal challenge, the eternal chase?

But as three parts of love is hope, and hope is really the mother of invention, Tatham, though full of anxiety, was also, like General Trochu, full of plans.  He had that morning made his mother despatch an invitation to one of the great painters of the day; a man who ruled the beauties of the moment en Sultan; painted whom he would; when he would; and at what price he would.  But while those who were dying to be painted by him must often wait for years, and put up with manners none too polite, there were others who avenged them; women, a few, very few women, whom the great man, strange to say, sighed to paint, and sighed in vain.  Such women were generally women of a certain age; none of your soft-cheeked beauties.  And Lady Tatham was one of them.  The great artist had begged her to let herself be painted by him.  And Victoria had negligently replied that, perhaps, at Duddon, some day, there might be time.  Several reminders, launched from the Chelsea studio, had not brought her to the point; but now for her son’s sake she had actually named a time; and a jubilant telegram from London had clenched the bargain.  The great man was to arrive in a fortnight from now, for a week’s visit; and Tatham had in his pocket a note from Lady Tatham to Mrs. Penfold requesting the pleasure of her company and that of her two daughters at dinner, to meet Mr. Louis Delorme, the day after his arrival.

And all this, because, at a mention of the illustrious name, Lydia had looked up with a flutter of enthusiasm.  “You know him?  How lucky for you!  He’s wonderful!  I?  Oh, no.  How should I?  I saw him once in the distance—­he was giving away prizes.  I didn’t get one—­alack!  That’s the nearest I shall ever come to him.”