“I came to see this,” she said.  “It’s very beautiful.”

Miss Fenno’s eye travelled incuriously over the mystic blue reaches of the landscape.  “I suppose so,” she assented; adding, after another tentative pause, “You come here often, don’t you?”

“Very often,” Mrs. Quentin answered.  “I find pictures a great help.”

“A help?”

“A rest, I mean...if one is tired or out of sorts.”

“Ah,” Miss Fenno murmured, looking down.

“This Beltraffio is new, you know,” Mrs. Quentin continued.  “What a wonderful background, isn’t it?  Is he a painter who interests you?”

The girl glanced again at the dusky canvas, as though in a final endeavor to extract from it a clue to the consolations of art.  “I don’t know,” she said at length; “I’m afraid I don’t understand pictures.”  She moved nearer to Mrs. Quentin and held out her hand.

“You’re going?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Quentin looked at her.  “Let me drive you home,” she said, impulsively.  She was feeling, with a shock of surprise, that it gave her, after all, no pleasure to see how much the girl had suffered.

Miss Fenno stiffened perceptibly.  “Thank you; I shall like the walk.”

Mrs. Quentin dropped her hand with a corresponding movement of withdrawal, and a momentary wave of antagonism seemed to sweep the two women apart.  Then, as Mrs. Quentin, bowing slightly, again addressed herself to the picture, she felt a sudden touch on her arm.

“Mrs. Quentin,” the girl faltered, “I really came here because I saw your carriage.”  Her eyes sank, and then fluttered back to her hearer’s face.  “I’ve been horribly unhappy!” she exclaimed.

Mrs. Quentin was silent.  If Hope Fenno had expected an immediate response to her appeal, she was disappointed.  The older woman’s face was like a veil dropped before her thoughts.

“I’ve thought so often,” the girl went on precipitately, “of what you said that day you came to see me last autumn.  I think I understand now what you meant—­what you tried to make me see....  Oh, Mrs. Quentin,” she broke out, “I didn’t mean to tell you this—­I never dreamed of it till this moment—­but you do remember what you said, don’t you?  You must remember it!  And now that I’ve met you in this way, I can’t help telling you that I believe—­I begin to believe—­that you were right, after all.”

Mrs. Quentin had listened without moving; but now she raised her eyes with a slight smile.  “Do you wish me to say this to Alan?” she asked.

The girl flushed, but her glance braved the smile.  “Would he still care to hear it?” she said fearlessly.

Mrs. Quentin took momentary refuge in a renewed inspection of the Beltraffio; then, turning, she said, with a kind of reluctance:  “He would still care.”

“Ah!” broke from the girl.

During this exchange of words the two speakers had drifted unconsciously toward one of the benches.  Mrs. Quentin glanced about her:  a custodian who had been hovering in the doorway sauntered into the adjoining gallery, and they remained alone among the silvery Vandykes and flushed bituminous Halses.  Mrs. Quentin sank down on the bench and reached a hand to the girl.