shall you call the picture? I met Barty Mangan the other day,
and he was asking me all sorts of questions about it."

"I shall call it 'Christian, dost thou hear them?'" said Larry,
telling himself that the moment had come. "I was feeling that about
you all the time--I mean when I was painting. Christian, you
_did_ hear them, didn't you? What were they saying? Did they say
anything about me?"

He caught her hand and leaned to her, compelling her eyes to meet his;
"Let her see into my heart!" he thought; "she will find only herself
there!"

And just then the door opened, and old Evans appeared.

Larry released Christian's hand, and went red with rage up to the
roots of his fair hair. What he thought of Evans' incursion was
written so plainly on his face, that Christian, in that impregnable
corner of her mind where dwelt her sense of humour, felt a bubble of
laughter rise.

"You asked Mrs. Dixon, Miss, to see the picture," said Evans, with a
sour look at Larry. "She's outside now."

"Come in, Dixie," called Christian, with a sensation of reprieve.
Suspense had been trembling in the air round her; it trembled still,
but Dixie would bring respite, if not calm.

Mrs. Dixon, ceremonially clad in black silk, sailed up the long
billiard room, majestic as a full-rigged ship. Time had treated her
well; the increase of weight that the years had brought had done
little more than help to keep the wrinkles smoothed; her love for
Christian, having survived the depredations of the larder that had
once tried it, had triumphed over the enforced economies that marked
Christian's rule as housekeeper and was now her consolation for them.
To apprehend the intention of a painting is not given to all and is a
matter that requires more experience than is generally supposed. To
find a landscape has been reversed by the hand that wields the duster,
so that the trees stand on their heads, and the sky is as the waters
that are beneath the firmament, is an experience that has been denied
to few painters, and Mrs. Dixon would have found many to sympathise
with her, as she stood in silent stupefaction before the portrait.
Larry had been justified in his belief in it, but for such as Mrs.
Dixon, its appeal was inappreciable. Christian's face was in shade,
the brown darkness of her loosened hair framed it, and blended with
the green darkness of the yew hedge. Faint reflected lights from her
white dress, touches of sunlight that came through the