He led the way in; Mr. Brand stiffly and softly followed.  The twilight had thickened in the little studio; but the wall opposite the western window was covered with a deep pink flush.  There were a great many sketches and half-finished canvasses suspended in this rosy glow, and the corners of the room were vague and dusky.  Felix begged Mr. Brand to sit down; then glancing round him, “By Jove, how pretty it looks!” he cried.  But Mr. Brand would not sit down; he went and leaned against the window; he wondered what Felix wanted of him.  In the shadow, on the darker parts of the wall, he saw the gleam of three or four pictures that looked fantastic and surprising.  They seemed to represent naked figures.  Felix stood there, with his head a little bent and his eyes fixed upon his visitor, smiling intensely, pulling his mustache.  Mr. Brand felt vaguely uneasy.  “It is very delicate—­what I want to say,” Felix began.  “But I have been thinking of it for some time.”

“Please to say it as quickly as possible,” said Mr. Brand.

“It ’s because you are a clergyman, you know,” Felix went on.  “I don’t think I should venture to say it to a common man.”

Mr. Brand was silent a moment.  “If it is a question of yielding to a weakness, of resenting an injury, I am afraid I am a very common man.”

“My dearest friend,” cried Felix, “this is not an injury; it ’s a benefit—­a great service!  You will like it extremely.  Only it ’s so delicate!” And, in the dim light, he continued to smile intensely.  “You know I take a great interest in my cousins—­in Charlotte and Gertrude Wentworth.  That ’s very evident from my having traveled some five thousand miles to see them.”  Mr. Brand said nothing and Felix proceeded.  “Coming into their society as a perfect stranger I received of course a great many new impressions, and my impressions had a great freshness, a great keenness.  Do you know what I mean?”

“I am not sure that I do; but I should like you to continue.”

“I think my impressions have always a good deal of freshness,” said Mr. Brand’s entertainer; “but on this occasion it was perhaps particularly natural that—­coming in, as I say, from outside—­I should be struck with things that passed unnoticed among yourselves.  And then I had my sister to help me; and she is simply the most observant woman in the world.”

“I am not surprised,” said Mr. Brand, “that in our little circle two intelligent persons should have found food for observation.  I am sure that, of late, I have found it myself!”

“Ah, but I shall surprise you yet!” cried Felix, laughing.  “Both my sister and I took a great fancy to my cousin Charlotte.”

“Your cousin Charlotte?” repeated Mr. Brand.

“We fell in love with her from the first!”

“You fell in love with Charlotte?” Mr. Brand murmured.

“Dame!” exclaimed Felix, “she ’s a very charming person; and Eugenia was especially smitten.”  Mr. Brand stood staring, and he pursued, “Affection, you know, opens one’s eyes, and we noticed something.  Charlotte is not happy!  Charlotte is in love.”  And Felix, drawing nearer, laid his hand again upon his companion’s arm.