chance of a word.  Her gray dress, and white hat, her little white scarf, a trifle old-fashioned, and the pansies at her belt seemed to Tatham’s eager eyes the very perfection of dress.  He watched her keenly as she came in; the kind look at Faversham; then the start—­was it, of pity?—­for his altered aspect, the friendly greeting for himself; and all so sweet, so detached, so composed.  His heart sank, he could not have told why.

“I ought to have warned you of that hill!” she said, standing beside Faversham, and looking down upon him.

“You couldn’t know I was such a duffer!” laughed Faversham.  “It wasn’t me—­it was the bike.  At least, they tell me so.  As for me, everything, from the moment I left you till I woke up here six weeks ago, is wiped out.  Did you finish your sketch?  Were the press notices good?”

She smiled.  “Did you see what they were?”

“Certainly.  I saw your name in one as I picked it out.”

“I still sleep with it under my pillow—­when I feel low,” said Lydia.  “It said the nicest things.  And I sold my pictures.”

“Magnificent!” said Faversham.  “But of course you sold them.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Faversham, not ’of course’!” cried Mrs. Penfold, turning round upon him.  “You can’t think how Lydia was envied!  Hardly anybody sold.  There were friends of hers exhibiting—­and it was dreadful.  The secretary said they had hardly ever had such a bad year—­something to do with a bank breaking—­or the influenza—­or something.  But Lydia, lucky girl, sold hers within the first week.  And we don’t know at all who bought them.  The secretary said he was not to tell.  There are many buyers, he told us, who won’t give their names—­for fear of being bothered afterward.  As if Lydia would ever bother any one!”

The guilty Tatham sat with his cane between his knees twirling it, his eyes on the ground.  No one noticed him.

“And the sketch you were making that day?” said Faversham.

“As you liked it, I brought it to show you,” said Lydia shyly.  And she produced a thin parcel she had been carrying under her arm.

Faversham praised the drawing warmly.  It reminded him, he said, of some work he had seen in March, at one of the Bond Street galleries; a one-man show by a French water-colourist.  He named him.  Lydia flushed a little.

“Next to Mr. Delorme”—­she glanced gratefully at Tatham—­“he is the man of all the world I admire most!  I am afraid I can’t help imitating him.”

“But you don’t!” cried Faversham.  “You are quite independent.  I didn’t mean that for a moment.”

Lydia’s eyes surveyed him with a look of amusement, which seemed to say that she was not at all duped by his compliment.  He proceeded to justify it.

“I’ll tell you who do imitate him—­”

And forthwith he began to show a remarkable knowledge of certain advanced groups among the younger artists and their work.  Lydia’s face kindled.  She listened; she agreed; she interrupted; she gave her view; it was evident that the conversation both surprised and delighted her.