One morning in December, she went with her mother to an exhibition of pictures in Bond Street.  Such visits had been common of late; Mrs. Enderby could rarely occupy herself at home, and pictures, as everything beautiful, always attracted her.  They had been in the gallery a few minutes only, when Maud recognised Waymark close at hand.  He was looking closely at a canvas, and seemed quite unaware of her proximity.  She laid her hand on her mother’s arm, and spoke in a nervous whisper.

“Mother, I know that gentleman.”

“This one?” asked Mrs. Enderby, indicating Waymark, with a smile.  She showed no surprise, any more than she would have done had Maud been only her friend.

“Yes.  If he should notice me, may I introduce him to you?  He was at the school where I taught a year ago.”

“Why, certainly, my love,” replied her mother, with cheerful assent.  “It is quite natural that you should have acquaintances I should like to know.  Shall I ask him to come and see us?”

There was no opportunity of answering.  Waymark, in moving on, had glanced round at the groups of people, and his eye had fallen on Maud.  He seemed uncertain; looked quickly away; glanced again, and, meeting her eyes, raised his hat, though still without conviction in his face.  Maud came naturally forward a step or two, and they shook hands; then at once she introduced him to her mother.  No one ever experienced awkward pauses in Mrs. Enderby’s presence; conversation linked itself with perfect ease, and in a minute they were examining the pictures together.  Mrs. Enderby had made up her mind with regard to her new acquaintance in one or two gleams of her quick eyes, and then talked on in an eager, intelligent way, full of contagious enthusiasm, which soon brought out Waymark’s best powers.  Maud said very little.  Whenever it was possible unobserved, she gazed at Waymark’s face.  She found herself thinking that, in external appearance, he had improved since she last saw him.  He had no longer that hungry, discontented look to which she had grown accustomed in the upper schoolroom at Dr. Tootle’s; his eye seemed at once quieter and keener; his complexion was brighter; the habitual frown had somewhat smoothed away.  Then, he was more careful in the matter of dress.  On the whole, it seemed probable that his circumstances had changed for the better.

Waymark, on his side, whilst he talked, was not less full of speculation about Maud.  For the change in her appearance was certainly much more noticeable than it could be in his own.  Not only that she had put aside her sad-coloured and poor raiment for a costume of tasteful and attractive simplicity—­this, of course, her mother’s doing—­but the look of shrinking, almost of fear, which he had been wont to see on her face, was entirely gone.  Her eyes seemed for ever intelligent of new meanings; she was pale, but with the pallor of eager, joy-bringing thought.  There was something pathetic in this new-born face; the lips seemed still to speak of past sorrows, or, it might be, to hold unspoken a sad fate half-foreseen.