The prodigal nephew needed all his by no means deficient stock of nerve to enable him to present an unmoved countenance to this unexpected attack of geniality.  This, he thought, as he returned the other’s greeting with as great a semblance of ease as he could muster—­this was the uncle who had declined to recognise him when they met a few months ago, in the broadest daylight, in Pall Mall!

Presently, while he was trying to recover his equanimity by devoting himself to the cult of Eve, he heard the colonel whisper in a confidential undertone to their hostess: 

“Devilish clever fellow, my nephew, y’know, though perhaps I oughtn’t to say so.  Those newspaper beggars think very highly of him—­the critics, y’know, and all that; why, ’pon my soul, I was reading something about him only this morning at the club in the what’s-his-name—­the __Outcry__.  Said he ought to be in the Academy.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sylvester sympathetically, “you are quite right to be proud of him, Colonel Lightmark.  Charles thinks he is very clever, and he is so pleased with my portrait.  We want him to paint Eve, you know, only——­ Oh, do let me give you another cup of tea, Mr. Lightmark!  Two lumps of sugar, I think?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Sylvester.  Do you know, I have discovered that we have a mutual friend—­that is to say, I found out not long ago, quite by accident, that my very good friend, Philip Rainham, has the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

“Oh, really!” said Eve delightedly; “do you know Philip—­Mr. Rainham?  And have you seen him lately?  We haven’t heard anything of him for weeks and weeks—­not since Christmas, have we, mamma?”

“Ah!” answered Lightmark, smiling, and letting his eyes wander over the white expanse of the Colonel’s waistcoat.  “I don’t wonder at that.  You see, he has been nursing himself on the Riviera all the winter, lucky dog!  He only came back last night.  I saw him at his dock, you know, down the river—­such a jolly old place.  I have been sketching there, on and off, nearly all the spring.  He lets me make myself quite at home.”

“Take care, Dick, my boy,” said the Colonel sententiously, fixing his black-rimmed eyeglass under the bushy white brow that shaded his right eye; “don’t you let him entice you into that business.  Don’t pay nowadays!  All the shipping goes up North, y’know.  The poor old Thames is only used for regattas now, and penny steamers.”

“How very nice for the Thames!” cried Eve.  “Why, there’s nothing I like more than regattas!  I do so hope we shall go to Henley this year; but houseboats are so expensive, and it’s no fun unless you have a houseboat.  We had a punt last year, a sort of thing like a long butler’s tray, and Charles got into fearful difficulties.  You know, it looks so easy to push a punt along with a pole, but the pole has a wicked way of sticking in the mud at critical moments—­when they are clearing the course, for instance.  Oh, it was dreadful!  Everybody was looking at us, and I felt like one of those horrid people who always get in the way at the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race!”