“I hope my daughter isn’t indiscreet?” Mrs. Sylvester had hazarded, after catching Lightmark’s eye on its return journey from a glance in the direction of the little group in the corner; and the young man had reassured her hastily, before misgivings had time to assail him, and when they did, he hoped for the best.  For a painter’s portfolio is, after all, hardly less confidential than a diary, and may be on occasion almost as compromising, in spite of the fact that the records it contains are written in cipher.

The sunlight, mellowed to a dull straw colour by its passage through London air, slanted in at the window, falling first on Charles Sylvester’s handsome face, with its eminently professional, severely cut features, and the careful limitation of whisker, which seemed so completely in harmony with his shaven upper lip and the unsympathetic scrutiny of his double eyeglass; then, losing some of its brightness among the little ripples of brown hair which a gracious Providence had forbidden her hat to conceal, fell like a halo upon the pale green wall behind Eve’s head.

The young artists—­the “boys,” as they would have called themselves—­were circulating busily with teacups and petits fours, and the chatter of voices bore testimony to the preponderance of the Bohemian element.  It is only the dwellers on the confines who lose their voices in the Temple of Art—­a goddess who, to judge by her votaries, is not wont to take pleasure in silence.

“Oh,” said Eve, in reply to one of Rainham’s remarks, “is that Bordighera?  What lovely blue water! and what perfectly delicious little fishing-boats!  I should like to go there.  Charles is going to take us to Lucerne in a week or two, you know, when the Long Vacation begins.  But I suppose we shall hardly get to Italy.”

“Yes, that’s Bordighera”—­with a sigh—­“my happy hunting-ground.  And the water is much bluer really—­only don’t tell Dick I said so.  Yes, you ought to go there.  If you stayed late enough you would have me dropping in on you one fine day, as soon as the fogs begin here.  Happy thought!  Why shouldn’t we all winter out there?”

“That would be nice,” said Eve, rather doubtfully; “but, you know, there’s Charles—­he would have to come back for the Law Courts in the autumn, and he would be so lonely all by himself.  And—­and there’s my portrait.  Mr. Lightmark wants to get that ready for next year’s Academy; and I can’t sit to him very often, as it is, because of chaperons, you know.”

Meanwhile Lightmark was telling Mrs. Dollond, in a confidential undertone, some story of a fair American sitter, who, on his expressing himself dissatisfied with his efforts worthily to transfer her complexion to canvas, had at once offered to send her maid round to his studio with an assortment of her favourite poudre de rose.  Dollond listened with an amused smile to a recital of the sculptor’s impressions of the Salon, which he had taken on his way from Rome.