ng fundamentally
undisciplined or disciplined by the material facts of life alone, rather
than by a secret creed of voluntary rules. It showed here and there in
ways women alone could understand; above all, in the way her eyes looked
out on that house which she was clearly longing to enter. Not 'Shall I
go in?' was in that look, but 'Dare I go in?'

Suddenly she saw Bianca. The meeting of these two was very like the
ordinary meeting of a mistress and her maid. Bianca's face had no
expression, except the faint, distant curiosity which seems to say: 'You
are a sealed book to me; I have always found you so. What you really
think and do I shall never know.'

The little model's face wore a half-caught-out, half-stolid look.

"Please go in," Bianca said; "my father will be glad to see you."

She held the garden gate open for the girl to pass through. Her feeling
at that moment was one of slight amusement at the futility of her
journey. Not even this small piece of generosity was permitted her, it
seemed.

"How are you getting on?"

The little model made an impulsive movement at such an unexpected
question. Checking it at once, she answered:

"Very well, thank you; that is, not very---"

"You will find my father tired to-day; he has caught a chill. Don't let
him read too much, please."

The little model seemed to try and nerve herself to make some statement,
but, failing, passed into the house.

Bianca did not follow, but stole back into the garden, where the sun was
still falling on a bed of wallflowers at the far end. She bent down over
these flowers till her veil touched them. Two wild bees were busy there,
buzzing with smoky wings, clutching with their black, tiny legs at the
orange petals, plunging their black, tiny tongues far down into the
honeyed centres. The flowers quivered beneath the weight of their small
dark bodies. Bianca's face quivered too, bending close to them, nor
making the slightest difference to their hunt.

Hilary, who, it has been seen, lived in thoughts about events rather
than in events themselves, and to whom crude acts and words had little
meaning save in relation to what philosophy could make of them, greeted
with a startled movement the girl's appearance in the corridor outside
Mr. Stone's apartment. But the little model, who mentally lived very
much from hand to mouth, and had only the philosophy of wants, acted
differently. She knew that for the last five days, like a spaniel dog