“Why shouldn’t you marry her if you love her?  That is to say, if this is more than one of your ordinary caprices, spiced by the fact that its object is a nun.”

The men looked at each other for a moment doubtful.  Then Mike laughed.

“I hope I don’t love her too much, that is all.  But perhaps she will not come.  Why is she standing there?”

“I should laugh if she turned on her heel and walked away right under your very nose.”

A cloud passed over Mike’s face.

“That’s not possible,” he said, and he raised the glass.  “If I thought there was any chance of that I should go down to see her.”

“You couldn’t force her to come up.  She seems to be admiring the view.”

Then Lily left the embankment and turned towards the Temple.

“She is coming!” Mike cried, and laying down the opera-glass he took up the scent and squirted it about the room.  “You won’t make much noise, like a good fellow, will you?  I shall tell her I am here alone.”

“I shall make no noise—­I shall finish my article.  I am expecting Lizzie about four; I will slip out and meet her in the street.  Good-bye.”

Mike went to the head of the staircase, and looking down the prodigious height, he waited.  It occurred to him that if he fell, the emparadised hour would be lost for ever.  If she were to pass through the Temple without stopping at No. 2!  The sound of little feet and the colour of a heliotrope skirt dispersed his fears, and he watched her growing larger as she mounted each flight of stairs; when she stopped to take breath, he thought of running down and carrying her up in his arms, but he did not move, and she did not see him until the last flight.

“Here you are at last!”

“I am afraid I have kept you waiting.  I was not certain whether I should come.”

“And you stopped to look at the view instead?”

“Yes, but how did you know that?”

“Ah! that’s telling; come in.”

The girl went in shyly.

“So this is where you live?  How nicely you have arranged the room.  I never saw a room like this before.  How different from the convent!  What would the nuns think if they saw me here?  What strange pictures!—­those ballet-girls; they remind me of the pantomime.  Did you buy those pictures?”

“No; they are wonderful, aren’t they?  A friend of mine bought them in France.”

“Mr. Escott?”

“Yes; I forgot you knew him—­how stupid of me!  Had it not been for him I shouldn’t have known you—­I was thinking of something else.”

“Where is he now?  I hope he will not return while I am here.  You did not tell him I was coming?”

“Of course not; he is away in France.”

“And those portraits—­it is always the same face.”

“They are portraits of a girl he is in love with.”

“Do you believe he is in love?”

“Yes, rather; head over heels.  What do you think of the painting?”