a noticed the silence of the two she became uneasy, and judged
that the time had come for discreet intervention.

"Nicky," she said, "is it true that Desmond's been doing drawings for
you?"

"Yes," said Nicky, "she's done any amount."

"My dear boy, have you any idea of the amount you'll have to pay her?"

"I haven't," said Nicky, "I wish I had. I hate asking her, and yet I
suppose I'll have to."

"Of course you'll have to. _She_ won't hate it. She's got to earn her
living as much as you have."

"Has she? You don't mean to say she's hard up?"

He had never thought of Desmond as earning her own living, still less as
being hard up.

"I only wish she were," said Vera, "for your sake."

"Why on earth for my sake?"

"Because _then_, my dear Nicky, you wouldn't have to pay so stiff a
price."

"I don't care," said Nicky, "how stiff the price is. I shall pay it."

And Vera replied that Desmond, in her own queer way, really was a rather
distinguished painter. "Pay her," she said. "Pay her for goodness sake
and have done with it. And if she wants to give you things don't
let her."

"As if," said Nicky, "I should dream of letting her."

And he went off to Chelsea to pay Desmond then and there.

Vera thought that she had been rather clever. Nicky would dash in and do
the thing badly. He would be very proud about it, and he would revolt
from his dependence on Desmond, and he would show her--Vera hoped that
he would show her--that he did not want to be under any obligation to
her. And Desmond would be hurt and lose her temper. The hard look would
get into her face and destroy its beauty, and she would say detestable
things in a detestable voice, and a dreadful ugliness would come between
them, and the impulse of Nicky's yet unborn passion would be checked,
and the memory of that abominable half-hour would divide them for ever.

* * * * *

But Vera herself had grown hard and clever. She had forgotten Nicky's
tenderness, and she knew nothing at all about Desmond's fright. And, as
it happened, neither Nicky nor Desmond did any of the things she thought
they would do.

Nicky was not impetuous. He found Desmond in her studio working on the
last drawing of the Moving Fortress, with the finished model before her.
That gave him his opening, and he approached shyly and tentatively.

Desmond put on an air of complete absorption in her drawing; but she
smiled. A pretty smile that lifted the