Hughs looked round, as though to find something that would help him to proceed; his eyes lighted on Hilary’s portrait.

“Ah!  I’d put the two together if I was you,” he said.

Blanca walked past him to the door.

“Either you or I must leave the room.”

The man’s face was neither sullen now nor passionate, but simply miserable.

“Look here, lady,” he said, “don’t take it hard o’ me coming here.  I’m not out to do you a harm.  I’ve got a wife of my own, and Gawd knows I’ve enough to put up with from her about this girl.  I’ll be going in the water one of these days.  It’s him giving her them clothes that set me coming here.”

Blanca opened the door.  “Please go,” she said.

“I’ll go quiet enough,” he muttered, and, hanging his head, walked out.

Having seen him through the side door out into the street, Blanca went back to where she had been standing before he came.  She found some difficulty in swallowing; for once there was no armour on her face.  She stood there a long time without moving, then put the pictures back into their places and went down the little passage to the house.  Listening outside her father’s door, she turned the handle quietly and went in.

Mr. Stone, holding some sheets of paper out before him, was dictating to the little model, who was writing laboriously with her face close above her arm.  She stopped at Blanca’s entrance.  Mr. Stone did not stop, but, holding up his other hand, said: 

“I will take you through the last three pages again.  Follow!”

Blanca sat down at the window.

Her father’s voice, so thin and slow, with each syllable disjointed from the other, rose like monotony itself.

“’There were tra-cea-able indeed, in those days, certain rudi-men-tary at-tempts to f-u-s-e the classes....’”

It went on unwavering, neither rising high nor falling low, as though the reader knew he had yet far to go, like a runner that brings great news across mountains, plains, and rivers.

To Blanca that thin voice might have been the customary sighing of the wind, her attention was so fast fixed on the girl, who sat following the words down the pages with her pen’s point.

Mr. Stone paused.

“Have you got the word ’insane’?” he asked.

The little model raised her face.  “Yes, Mr. Stone.”

“Strike it out.”

With his eyes fixed on the trees he stood breathing audibly.  The little model moved her fingers, freeing them from cramp.  Blanca’s curious, smiling scrutiny never left her, as though trying to fix an indelible image on her mind.  There was something terrifying in that stare, cruel to herself, cruel to the girl.

“The precise word,” said Mr. Stone, “eludes me.  Leave a blank.  Follow!...  ’Neither that sweet fraternal interest of man in man, nor a curiosity in phenomena merely as phenomena....’” His voice pursued its tenuous path through spaces, frozen by the calm eternal presence of his beloved idea, which, like a golden moon, far and cold, presided glamorously above the thin track of words.  And still the girl’s pen-point traced his utterance across the pages:  Mr. Stone paused again, and looking at his daughter as though surprised to see her sitting there, asked: