He shifted his easel, and began to draw.  She felt flattered, and a little fluttered.  He was so pale, and had a curious, half-fed look, which moved her.

“Have you been long in England?” she said presently.

“Ever since the first months of the war.”

“Do you like it?”

“I was very homesick at first.  But I live in my pictures; there are wonderful things in London.”

“Why did you want to sketch me?”

The painter smiled again.  “Mademoiselle, youth is so mysterious.  Those young trees I have been painting mean so much more than the old big trees.  Your eyes are seeing things that have not yet happened.  There is Fate in them, and a look of defending us others from seeing it.  We have not such faces in my country; we are simpler; we do not defend our expressions.  The English are very mysterious.  We are like children to them.  Yet in some ways you are like children to us.  You are not people of the world at all.  You English have been good to us, but you do not like us.”

“And I suppose you do not like us, either?”

He smiled again, and she noticed how white his teeth were.

“Well, not very much.  The English do things from duty, but their hearts they keep to themselves.  And their Art—­well, that is really amusing!”

“I don’t know much about Art,” Noel murmured.

“It is the world to me,” said the painter, and was silent, drawing with increased pace and passion.

“It is so difficult to get subjects,” he remarked abruptly.  “I cannot afford to pay models, and they are not fond of me painting out of doors.  If I had always a subject like you!  You—­you have a grief, have you not?”

At that startling little question, Noel looked up, frowning.

“Everybody has, now.”

The painter grasped his chin; his eyes had suddenly become tragical.

“Yes,” he said, “everybody.  Tragedy is daily bread.  I have lost my family; they are in Belgium.  How they live I do not know.”

“I’m sorry; very sorry, too, if we aren’t nice to you, here.  We ought to be.”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “What would you have?  We are different.  That is unpardonable.  An artist is always lonely, too; he has a skin fewer than other people, and he sees things that they do not.  People do not like you to be different.  If ever in your life you act differently from others, you will find it so, mademoiselle.”

Noel felt herself flushing.  Was he reading her secret?  His eyes had such a peculiar, secondsighted look.

“Have you nearly finished?” she asked.

“No, mademoiselle; I could go on for hours; but I do not wish to keep you.  It is cold for you, sitting there.”

Noel got up.  “May I look?”

“Certainly.”

She did not quite recognise herself—­who does?—­but she saw a face which affected her oddly, of a girl looking at something which was, and yet was not, in front of her.