Noel passed down their line, and seated herself on a bench.  Close by, an artist was painting.  His easel was only some three yards away from her, and she could see the picture; a vista of the Park Lane houses through, the gay plane-tree screen.  He was a tall man, about forty, evidently foreign, with a thin, long, oval, beardless face, high brow, large grey eyes which looked as if he suffered from headaches and lived much within himself.  He cast many glances at her, and, pursuant of her new interest in “life” she watched him discreetly; a little startled however, when, taking off his broad-brimmed squash hat, he said in a broken accent: 

“Forgive me the liberty I take, mademoiselle, but would you so very kindly allow me to make a sketch of you sitting there?  I work very quick.  I beg you will let me.  I am Belgian, and have no manners, you see.”  And he smiled.

“If you like,” said Noel.

“I thank you very much:” 

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.”