Of all the dark and tortuous places of this life, the human heart is the most dark and tortuous; and of all human hearts none are less clear, more intricate than the hearts of all that class of people among whom Bianca had her being.  Pride was a simple quality when joined with a simple view of life, based on the plain philosophy of property; pride was no simple quality when the hundred paralysing doubts and aspirations of a social conscience also hedged it round.  In thus going forth with the full intention of restoring the little model to her position in the household, her pride fought against her pride, and her woman’s sense of ownership in the man whom she had married wrestled with the acquired sentiments of freedom, liberality, equality, good taste.  With her spirit thus confused, and her mind so at variance with itself, she was really acting on the simple instinct of compassion.

She had run upstairs from Mr. Stone’s room, and now walked fast, lest that instinct, the most physical, perhaps, of all—­awakened by sights and sounds, and requiring constant nourishment—­should lose its force.

Rapidly, then, she made her way to the grey street in Bayswater where Cecilia had told her that the girl now lived.

The tall, gaunt landlady admitted her.

“Have you a Miss Barton lodging here?” Bianca asked.

“Yes,” said the landlady, “but I think she’s out.”

She looked into the little model’s room.

“Yes,” she said; “she’s out; but if you’d like to leave a note you could write in here.  If you’re looking for a model, she wants work, I believe.”

That modern faculty of pressing on an aching nerve was assuredly not lacking to Bianca.  To enter the girl’s room was jabbing at the nerve indeed.

She looked round her.  The mental vacuity of that little room!  There was not one single thing—­with the exception of a torn copy of Tit-Bits—­which suggested that a mind of any sort lived there.  For all that, perhaps because of that, it was neat enough.

“Yes,” said the landlady, “she keeps her room tidy.  Of course, she’s a country girl—­comes from down my way.”  She said this with a dry twist of her grim, but not unkindly, features.  “If it weren’t for that,” she went on, “I don’t think I should care to let to one of her profession.”

Her hungry eyes, gazing at Bianca, had in them the aspirations of all Nonconformity.

Bianca pencilled on her card: 

“If you can come to my father to-day or tomorrow, please do.”

“Will you give her this, please?  It will be quite enough.”

“I’ll give it her,” the landlady said; “she’ll be glad of it, I daresay.  I see her sitting here.  Girls like that, if they’ve got nothing to do—­see, she’s been moping on her bed....”

The impress of a form was, indeed, clearly visible on the red and yellow tasselled tapestry of the bed.

Bianca cast a look at it.