ianca said; "my father will be glad to see you."

She held the garden gate open for the girl to pass through. Her feeling
at that moment was one of slight amusement at the futility of her
journey. Not even this small piece of generosity was permitted her, it
seemed.

"How are you getting on?"

The little model made an impulsive movement at such an unexpected
question. Checking it at once, she answered:

"Very well, thank you; that is, not very---"

"You will find my father tired to-day; he has caught a chill. Don't let
him read too much, please."

The little model seemed to try and nerve herself to make some statement,
but, failing, passed into the house.

Bianca did not follow, but stole back into the garden, where the sun was
still falling on a bed of wallflowers at the far end. She bent down over
these flowers till her veil touched them. Two wild bees were busy there,
buzzing with smoky wings, clutching with their black, tiny legs at the
orange petals, plunging their black, tiny tongues far down into the
honeyed centres. The flowers quivered beneath the weight of their small
dark bodies. Bianca's face quivered too, bending close to them, nor
making the slightest difference to their hunt.

Hilary, who, it has been seen, lived in thoughts about events rather than
in events themselves, and to whom crude acts and words had little meaning
save in relation to what philosophy could make of them, greeted with a
startled movement the girl's appearance in the corridor outside Mr.
Stone's apartment. But the little model, who mentally lived very much
from hand to mouth, and had only the philosophy of wants, acted
differently. She knew that for the last five days, like a spaniel dog
shut away from where it feels it ought to be, she had wanted to be where
she was now standing; she knew that, in her new room with its rust-red
doors, she had bitten her lips and fingers till blood came, and, as newly
caged birds will flutter, had beaten her wings against those walls with
blue roses on a yellow ground. She remembered how she had lain,
brooding, on that piece of red and yellow tapestry, twisting its tassels,
staring through half-closed eyes at nothing.

There was something different in her look at Hilary. It had lost some of
its childish devotion; it was bolder, as if she had lived and felt, and
brushed a good deal more down off her wings during those few days.

"Mrs. Dallison told me to come," she said. "I thou