arked for
this high destiny turned round, and she spoke to my mother. "I'll
introduce him to you--he's awfully nice." She beckoned and invited him
with her parasol; the movement struck me as taking everything for
granted. I had heard of Lord Considine and if I had not been able to
place Lord Iffield it was because I didn't know the name of his eldest
son. The young man took no notice of Miss Saunt's appeal; he only stared
a moment and then on her repeating it quietly turned his back. She was
an odd creature: she didn't blush at this; she only said to my mother
apologetically, but with the frankest sweetest amusement, "You don't
mind, do you? He's a monster of shyness!" It was as if she were sorry
for every one--for Lord Iffield, the victim of a complaint so painful,
and for my mother, the subject of a certain slight. "I'm sure I don't
want him!" said my mother, but Flora added some promise of how she would
handle him for his rudeness. She would clearly never explain anything by
any failure of her own appeal. There rolled over me while she took leave
of us and floated back to her friends a wave of superstitious dread. I
seemed somehow to see her go forth to her fate, and yet what should fill
out this orb of a high destiny if not such beauty and such joy? I had a
dim idea that Lord Considine was a great proprietor, and though there
mingled with it a faint impression that I shouldn't like his son the
result of the two images was a whimsical prayer that the girl mightn't
miss her possible fortune.

CHAPTER IV

One day in the course of the following June there was ushered into my
studio a gentleman whom I had not yet seen but with whom I had been very
briefly in correspondence. A letter from him had expressed to me some
days before his regret on learning that my "splendid portrait" of Miss
Flora Louisa Saunt, whose full name figured by her own wish in the
catalogue of the exhibition of the Academy, had found a purchaser before
the close of the private view. He took the liberty of inquiring whether
I might have at his service some other memorial of the same lovely head,
some preliminary sketch, some study for the picture. I had replied that
I had indeed painted Miss Saunt more than once and that if he were
interested in my work I should be happy to show him what I had done. Mr.
Geoffrey Dawling, the person thus introduced to me, stumbled into my room
with awkward movements and equivocal sounds--a long