To detain him, for a time at least, was my intention, though my motive was not merely to afford her pleasure.  The advent of the young man had produced a singularly disagreeable impression upon me, quite apart from any antagonism I might have felt toward him as a type.  Strange suspicions leaped into my mind, formless—­in the surprise of the moment—­ but rapidly groping toward definite outline; and following hard upon them crept a tingling apprehension.  The reappearance of this rattish youth, casual as was the air with which he strove to invest it, began to assume, for me, the character of a theatrical entrance of unpleasant portent—­a suggestion just now enhanced by an absurdly obvious notion of his own that he was enacting a part.  This was written all over him, most legibly in his attitude of the knowing amateur, as he surveyed Miss Elliott’s painting patronisingly, his head on one side, his cane in the crook of his elbows behind his back, and his body teetering genteelly as he shifted his weight from his toes to his heels and back again, nodding meanwhile a slight but judicial approbation.

“Now, about how much,” he said slowly, “would you expec’ t’ git f’r a pitcher that size?”

“It isn’t mine,” I informed him.

“You don’t tell me it’s the little lady’s—­what?” He bowed genially and favoured Miss Elliott with a stare of warm admiration.  “Pretty a thing as I ever see,” he added.

“Oh,” she cried with an ardour that choked her slightly.  “Thank you!”

“Oh, I meant the pitcher!” he said hastily, evidently nonplussed by a gratitude so fervent.

The incorrigible damsel cast down her eyes in modesty.  “And I had hoped,” she breathed, “something so different!”

I could not be certain whether or not he caught the whisper; I thought he did.  At all events, the surface of his easy assurance appeared somewhat disarranged; and, perhaps to restore it by performing the rites of etiquette, he said: 

“Well, I expec’ the smart thing now is to pass the cards, but mine’s in my grip an’ it ain’t unpacked yet.  The name you’d see on ’em is Oil Poicy.”

“Oil Poicy,” echoed Miss Elliott, turning to me in genuine astonishment.

“Mr. Earl Percy,” I translated.

“Oh, rapturous!” she cried, her face radiant.  “And won’t Mr. Percy give us his opinion of my Art?”

Mr. Percy was in doubt how to take her enthusiasm; he seemed on the point of turning surly, and hesitated, while a sharp vertical line appeared on his small forehead; but he evidently concluded, after a deep glance at her, that if she was making game of him it was in no ill-natured spirit—­nay, I think that for a few moments he suspected her liveliness to be some method of her own for the incipient stages of a flirtation.

Finally he turned again to the easel, and as he examined the painting thereon at closer range, amazement overspread his features.  However, pulling himself together, he found himself able to reply—­and with great gallantry: