aby of any sense of opportunity.

We arranged it for the following Friday, but as luck would have it, His
Excellency sent for me at the very hour; we met the messenger. I felt
myself unlucky, but there was nothing for it but that Armour should go
alone, which he did, with neither diffidence nor alacrity, but as if it
were all in the day's work, and he had no reason to be disobliging.

The files were very heavy during the succeeding fortnight, and the
Viceroy quite importunate in his demand for my valuable suggestions.
I was worked off my legs, and two or three times was obliged to deny
myself in replying to notes from Dora suggesting Sunday breakfast or
afternoon tea. Finally, I shook myself free; it was the day she wrote:

'You must come--I can't keep it to myself any longer.'

I half thought Armour would be there, but he wasn't; that is, he was
absent corporeally, but the spirit and expression of him littered
every convenient part. Some few things lay about that I had seen in
the studio, to call it so, but most of the little wooden panels looked
fresh, almost wet, and the air held strongly the fragrance of Armour's
north veranda. In one corner there used to be a Madonna on a carved
easel; the Madonna stood on the floor, and the easel with working pegs
in it held an unfinished canvas. Dora sat in the midst with a distinct
flush--she was inclined to be sallow--and made me welcome in terms
touched with extravagance. She did not rush, however, upon the matter
that was dyeing her cheeks, and I showed myself as little impetuous. She
poured out the tea, and we sat there inhaling, as it were, the aroma of
the thing, while keeping it consciously in the background.

I imagine there was no moment in the time I describe when we enjoyed
Ingersoll Armour so much as at this one, when he lay in his nimbus half
known and wholly suppressed, between us. There were later instances,
perhaps, of deeper satisfaction, but they were more or less perplexed,
and not unobscured by anxiety. That afternoon it was all to know and to
be experienced, with just a delicious foretaste.

I said something presently about Lady Pilkey's picnic on the morrow, to
which we had both been bidden.

'Shall I call for you?' I asked. 'You will ride, of course.'

'Thanks, but I've cried off--I'm going sketching.' Her eyes plainly
added, 'with Ingersoll Armour,' but she as obviously shrank from the
roughness of pitching him in that unconsidered way before us. F