Four days later, when he was strolling round the rooms in Burlington House, he saw not far in front of him the tall and restless figure of a woman.  She was alone.  For some time Malling did not recognize her.  She did not turn sufficiently for him to see her face, and her almost feverish movements, though they attracted and fixed his attention, did not strike him as familiar.  His thought of her, as he slowly followed in the direction she was taking, was, “What a difficult woman that would be to live with!” For the hands were never still; the gait was uneasy; nervousness, almost a sort of pitiful irritation, seemed expressed by her every movement.

In the big room this woman paused before the picture of the year, which happened to be a very bad one, and Malling, coming up, at last recognized her as Lady Sophia Harding.

He took off his hat.  She seemed startled, but greeted him pleasantly, and entered into a discussion of the demerits which fascinate the crowd.

“You prefer seeing pictures alone, perhaps?” said Malling, presently.

“Indeed I don’t,” she answered.  “I was coming to-day with my husband.  We drove up together.  But at the last moment he thought he remembered something,—­some appointment with Mr. Chichester,—­and left me.”

There were irony and bitterness in her voice.

“He said he’d come back and meet me in the tea-room presently,” she added.

“Shall we go there and wait for him?” asked Malling.

“But I’m afraid I’m taking up your time.”

“I have no engagements this afternoon.  I shall enjoy a quiet talk with you.”

“It’s very good of you.”

They descended, and sat down in a quiet corner.  In the distance a few respectable persons were slowly eating bath-buns with an air of fashion, their duly marked catalogues laid beside them on marble.

Far-off waiters, standing with their knees bent, conversed in undertones.  A sort of subterranean depression, peculiar to this fastness of Burlington House, brooded over the china and the provisions.

“It reminds me of the British Museum tearoom,” said Lady Sophia.  “Here is tea!  What a mercy!  Modern pictures sap one’s little strength.”

She looked haggard, and was obviously on the edge of her nerves.

“Marcus might have come in,” she added.  “But of course he wouldn’t—­or couldn’t.”

“Doesn’t he care for pictures?”

She slightly shrugged her shoulders.

“He used to.  But I don’t know that he does now.”

“I suppose he has a tremendous amount to do.”

“He used to do much more at Liverpool.  If a man wishes to come to the front he mustn’t sit in an armchair with folded hands.”

There was a sharp sound of criticism in her voice which astonished Malling.  At the luncheon, only about a fortnight ago, she had shown herself plainly as the adoring wife, anxious for her husband’s success, nervously hostile to any one who interfered with it, who stood between him and the homage of his world.  Now Malling noted, or thought he noted, a change in her mental attitude.  He was instantly on the alert.