Jacques who restored her confidence, and Sir Jacques who
seized the opportunity to invite her to study the works in his
collection. The original image of the master of Hatton Towers (which had
possessed pointed ears and the hoofs of a goat) was faded by this time,
and was supplanted by that of a courtly and benevolent patron. Flamby
went to Hatton Towers, and meeting with nothing but kindness at the
hands of Sir Jacques, went again many times. With the art of a Duc de
Richelieu, Sir Jacques directed her studies, familiarising her mind with
that "broad" outlook which is essential to the artist. It was done so
cleverly that even Flamby the wise failed to recognise whither the
rose-strewn path was tending, and might have pursued it to the end but
that Fate--or Pan, god of the greenwood, jealous of trespass--intervened
and unmasked the presumptuous Silenus.

Like one of those nymphs to whom Don had detected her resemblance,
Flamby, throughout the genial months, often betook herself at early
morning to a certain woodland stream far from all beaten tracks and
inaccessible from the highroads. Narcissi carpeted the sloping banks
above a pool like a crystal mirror, into which the tiny rivulet purled
through forest ways sacred to the wild things and rarely profaned by
foot of man. In their shy, brief hour, violets lent their sweetness to
the spot, and at dusk came quiet creatures afoot and awing timidly to
slake their thirst at the magic fountain. A verdant awning, fanlike,
swayed above, and perhaps in some forgotten day an altar had stood in
the shady groves which protected all approaches to this pool whereby
Keats might have dreamed his wonder dreams.

One morning as she stepped out like Psyche from her bath, and stood for
a moment where an ardent sunbeam entering slyly through the bower above
wrapped her in golden embrace, upon that sylvan mystery intruded a sound
which blanched the roses on Flamby's cheeks and seemed to turn her body
to marble. It was a very slight sound, no more than a metallic click;
but like the glance of Gyges it stilled her heart's beating. She had
never known such helpless fear; for, without daring, or having power, to
turn her head, she divined who hid beside the pool and the purpose of
his coming.

In great leaps her heart resumed its throbbing, and Flamby, trembling
and breathless, sprang into the undergrowth upon that side of the pool
farthest from the high bank which masked the intruder and there