ty in the
cab. What a beneficent old beggar you are!"

As they drove rapidly eastward along the High Street of Old
Kensington, where the pale orange of the lamplight was just
beginning to tell in the dusk, Lightmark explained how, some two
years ago or more, he had been talking to a stranger in a railway
carriage, and lamenting the difficulty of finding really pretty
girls who would act as models; how the stranger had told him that he
knew of such a one--a dressmaker's apprentice, or something of that
sort, who found the work and hours too hard; and how, finally, Kitty
had called at his studio--the old one in Bloomsbury--and had sat to
him, perhaps half a dozen times, before vanishing from his
knowledge. This account had been freely interspersed with
exclamations on the beauty of the evening light in the Park, and the
subtle charm of the hour after sunset, more exquisite in the clear
atmosphere of Paris, but still sufficiently lovely even in London,
and acknowledged by both of them to be one of the few compensations
accorded to the dwellers in the much-abused Metropolis.

"I'm sorry," said Rainham penitently; "I had a stupid sort of idea
that you were mixed up in the business somehow. I thought so even
before I saw the sketch, because I couldn't understand whom else she
could have been looking for at the dock. It's very mysterious."

"I shouldn't bother about the girl if I were you," replied the other
light-heartedly. "Even if I had been mixed up with her, as you
gracefully express it, _you_ wouldn't have anything to do with it. I
believe you think I've been playing the devil with her now, you old
moralist! Hear me swear, by yon pale---- Dash it! there isn't a
moon--well, by the cresset on the top of the Empire, that the young
person in question has been my model for a brief space, and nothing
more. Only my model in the strictest sense of the word. No, I'll pay
the cab for once in a way."

When they had dined, sitting at their favourite table, which, from
its position at the end, commanded a view of the bright exotic room,
with its cosmopolitan contents, their wants cared for by the
head-waiter, who adored Lightmark for his knowledge of his
mother-tongue, recognising and being recognised by the forgotten of
their acquaintance, who were also dining there, Lightmark proposed
an adjournment to the little theatre in Dean Street hard by, where
"Niniche" was being played for the last time by a clever company
from across