is own," he told her; "and he steals something out of the
larder, or if he can't do that he just trusts to his eyes and tongue
when he meets some kind good lady, and he scours the countryside till
late. The worst of it is I shan't be able to do anything to him when he
turns up this evening, because he'll pretend he ran away because he was
so afraid of me after yesterday."

"Are you so terrifying?" said Georgie, peeping up at him from under her
shady hat.

"Not at all. I am a very easily-led person."

Georgie considered this, her head on one side. Then she said briskly:
"Then will you please help me take my sketching things somewhere, as I
can't get on with the portrait? After all, it's a bit your fault, isn't
it? You should have brought your son up better."

"Of course, I'll take them anywhere you like," said Ishmael; "where
shall it be?"

Thus it came about that Killigrew and Judy, a couple of hours later,
coming to the plateau, found Georgie there, busy over a sketch of
Ishmael in profile, with his head telling dark against the grey sunlit
cliff wall, because Georgie said it was easier to paint dark against
light. She was really working in her vivid, effective way, and Killigrew
found little to criticise.

Judy was no longer looking tired. Joe had met her perfectly, holding her
away and looking into her eyes in the whimsical tender way he had as
though he were saying: "It's absurd, isn't it, to make out what we did
together is of any importance, and yet as long as we're human beings we
can't help feeling it's wonderful ..." and he had thanked her, hardly in
words, for the hours of the night before, though there had been words
too, as she had buried her head against him. With that and her usual
careful aids to beauty Judy was glowing, and though there was never a
shade of possessiveness in her manner towards Killigrew, yet this
morning there was so much of confidence and possession of herself that
it almost amounted to the same thing when she made her appearance by his
side.

Georgie declared a rest when the two of them appeared, and Ishmael also
came to look at what she had been doing. He was standing a little behind
her and looking down, not so much at the painting as at the back of her
bent neck, where the absurd little drake's tails curved against the
skin, so white in the sunshine. One ear was rosy where the light shone
through it, and behind it lay a soft blue crescent of shadow.

As he looked that odd