The reason for her refusal was apparent when Hilary had entered.  Close to the long bookcase, behind the bust of Socrates, stood the little model.  Very still, as if fearing to betray itself by sound or movement, was her figure in its blue-green frock, and a brimless toque of brown straw, with two purplish roses squashed together into a band of darker velvet.  Beside those roses a tiny peacock’s feather had been slipped in—­unholy little visitor, slanting backward, trying, as it were, to draw all eyes, yet to escape notice.  And, wedged between the grim white bust and the dark bookcase, the girl herself was like some unlawful spirit which had slid in there, and stood trembling and vibrating, ready to be shuttered out.

Before this apparition Hilary recoiled towards the door, hesitated, and returned.

“You should not have come here,” he muttered, “after what we said to you yesterday.”

The little model answered quickly:  “But I’ve seen Hughs, Mr. Dallison.  He’s found out where I live.  Oh, he does look dreadful; he frightens me.  I can’t ever stay there now.”

She had come a little out of her hiding-place, and stood fidgeting her hands and looking down.

‘She’s not speaking the truth,’ thought Hilary.

The little model gave him a furtive glance.  “I did see him,” she said.  “I must go right away now; it wouldn’t be safe, would it?” Again she gave him that swift look.

Hilary thought suddenly:  ’She is using my own weapon against me.  If she has seen the man, he didn’t frighten her.  It serves me right!’ With a dry laugh, he turned his back.

There was a rustling round.  The little model had moved out of her retreat, and stood between him and the door.  At this stealthy action, Hilary felt once more the tremor which had come over him when he sat beside her in the Broad Walk after the baby’s funeral.  Outside in the garden a pigeon was pouring forth a continuous love song; Hilary heard nothing of it, conscious only of the figure of the girl behind him—­that young figure which had twined itself about his senses.

“Well, what is it you want?” he said at last.

The little model answered by another question.

’Are you really going away, Mr. Dallison?”

“I am.”

She raised her hands to the level of her breast, as though she meant to clasp them together; without doing so, however, she dropped them to her sides.  They were cased in very worn suede gloves, and in this dire moment of embarrassment Hilary’s eyes fastened themselves on those slim hands moving against her skirt.

The little model tried at once to slip them away behind her.  Suddenly she said in her matter-of-fact voice:  “I only wanted to ask—­Can’t I come too?”

At this question, whose simplicity might have made an angel smile, Hilary experienced a sensation as if his bones had been turned to water.  It was strange—­delicious—­as though he had been suddenly offered all that he wanted of her, without all those things that he did not want.  He stood regarding her silently.  Her cheeks and neck were red; there was a red tinge, too, in her eyelids, deepening the “chicory-flower” colour of her eyes.  She began to speak, repeating a lesson evidently learned by heart.