"

She was swallowing sobs that suddenly began rising in her throat, sobs
of utter shame and of stricken vanity.

"It's all too horrible!" she thought.

For a moment she hated the straight-backed, soldierly old man who was
standing before her. For he saw her in the dust, where no one ought ever
to see her.

"He's in love with me!" she said.

It was as if the words were forced out of her against her will. Directly
she had said them she bitterly regretted them. They were the cry of her
undying vanity that must try to put itself right, to stand up for itself
at whatever cost. Directly she had spoken them she saw a slight twitch
pull the left side of his face upward. It had upon her a moral effect.
She felt it as his irresistible comment--a comment of the body, but
coming from elsewhere--on her and her nature, and her recent association
with Arabian. And suddenly her hatred died, and she longed to do
something to establish herself in his regard, to gain his respect.

Already he was holding out his hand to her. She took his hand and held
it tightly.

"Don't think too badly of me," she said imploringly. "I want you not
to. Because I think you see clearly--you see people as they are. You
saw Adela as she is. And perhaps no one else did. But you don't know how
fine she is--even you don't. I had treated her badly. I had been unkind
to her, very unkind. I had--I had been spiteful to her, and tried to
harm her happiness. And yet she told me! I am sure no other woman would
ever have done what she has done."

"She had to do it," he said gravely.

But his hand now slightly pressed hers.

"_Had_ to? But why?"

"Because she happens to be a thoroughbred."

"Ah!" she breathed.

She was looking into his dark old eyes, and now they were kind, almost
soft.

"We must take care," he added, "that what she had done shall not be done
in vain. We owe her that. Good-bye."

"And you don't think too badly about me?"

"Once I called you the daffodil girl to her."

"Did you?"

"Youth is pretty cruel sometimes. When you've forgotten all this, don't
forget to be kind."

"To her! But how could I?"

"But I don't mean only to her!"

And then he left her.

When he had gone she sat still for a long while, thinking. And the
strange thing was that for once she was not thinking about herself.

CHAPTER XII

Rather late in the afternoon of the same day, towards half-past five,
Dick Garstin, who was alone in his studio upstair