“I know it.”

“Has she told you?”

“Not—­exactly.  But she hasn’t denied it.  And he sha’n’t have her.  She belongs to me, Leila.”

Leila sighed.  “Oh, why should love affairs always go wrong?”

“Mine shall go right,” Porter assured her grimly.  “I’m not in this fight to give up, Leila.”

When they took Mary in and Aunt Isabelle, Mary insisted that Leila should keep her seat beside Porter.  “I’m dead tired,” she said, “and I don’t want to talk.”

And now Porter, aiming strategically for Colin Quale’s studio, took them everywhere else but in the direction of his objective point.  But at last, after a long ride, they crossed the park which was faced by Colin’s rooms.

“Have you seen Delilah’s portrait?” Porter asked, casually.

They had not, and he knew it.

“If Colin’s in, why not stop?”

They agreed and found Delilah there, and her father.  The night was very hot, the room was faintly illumined by a hanging silver lamp in an alcove.  From among the shadows, Delilah rose.  “Colin is telephoning to the club for lemonades and things,” she said; “he’ll be back in a minute.”

“We came to see your picture,” Mary informed her.

“He is painting me again,” Delilah said, “in the moonlight, like this.”

She seated herself in the wide window, so that back of her was the silver haze of the glorious night Her dress of thin fine white was unrelieved.

Colin, coming in, set down his tray hastily and hastened to change the pose of her head.  “It will be hard to get just the effect I want,” he told them.  “It must not be hard black and white, but luminous.”

“I want them to see the other picture,” Porter said.

Colin switched on the lights.  “I’ll never do better than this,” he said.

“Do you like it, Mary?” Delilah asked.  “It is the garden party dress.”

“I love it,” Mary said.  “It isn’t just the dress, Delilah.  It’s you.  It’s so joyous—­as if you were expecting much of life.”

“I am,” Delilah said.  “I’m expecting everything.”

“And you’ll get it,” Colin stated.  “You won’t wait for any one to hand it to you; you’ll simply reach out and take it.”

Porter’s eyes were searching.  “Look here, Quale,” he said, at last, “do you mind letting us see the others?—­that Botticelli woman and the Fra Angelico—­they show your versatility.”

Colin hesitated.  “They are crude beside this.”

But Porter insisted.  “They’re charming.  Trot them out, Quale.”

So out they came—–­the picture of the lank lady with the long face, and the picture of the little saint in red.

It was to the girl in red that they gave the most attention.

“How lovely she is,” Mary said, “and how sweet.”

But Delilah, observing closely, did not agree with her.  “I’m not sure.  Some women look like that who are little fiends.  You haven’t shown me this before, Colin.  Who was she?”