pains to create. He hoped he had satisfied her interest
sufficiently; for, of course, the whole scene between himself and Lady
Betty must be kept from her inviolate. Was it not for Alice's own sake
and happiness?

"It makes me afraid!" said Alice, breaking the silence. "Perhaps nobody
is allowed to keep too great a happiness."

He winced. "She was always kind to me," he said, evading the train of
her reflection. "I spent many hours at my post in those ancient times,
and there were always unobtrusive attentions that made my work the
easier."

"I should like to know and love her," said Alice pensively.

Wyndham was silent. Her words startled and embarrassed him, since he had
been taking it for granted that she and Lady Betty would never come into
contact. Besides, in a way, Alice had given utterance to more of a
thought than a wish, so that a response hardly seemed necessary. They
lunched together, and Alice went off soon after, leaving him to receive
his sitters--the president and his wife, who were both to arrive that
afternoon.

"Of course, you won't expect me at Hampstead," he reminded her. "You
remember I put my name down for a club dinner to-night."

"Of course I remember," she said. "But I shall write you a letter
instead. Please look for it when you come home to-night."

But Wyndham did not dine at the club after all; at the last moment he
decided to spend the evening alone at his studio. It seemed a long time
since he had had a few quiet hours all to himself. Moreover, it was
strangely a boon to hear no other voices for once, and he lay back
pleasantly in his chair, though conscious of an uncommon degree of
weariness. And, in the calm and solitude of the studio, intensified by
the echoing of his occasional movements through the empty rooms beneath
him, the Robinsons seemed indeed a long way off up at Hampstead there,
and for the first time it seemed a positive bondage to him, this
constant duty of journeying across town to dine with them.

The nine o'clock post brought the promised letter from Alice, but from
amid the little heap in the box he picked out another eagerly. The
writing was Lady Betty's. He had never seen very much of it in the old
days, yet he recognised it at once.

He remembered just then a shrewd dictum of Schopenhauer--that, if we
wished to learn our real attitude towards any person, we should watch
and estimate our exact emotion at catching sight of the well-known
handwriting on a le