bout without
expostulations, reproach, or explanation, just by the turning of a key;
and even this was the merest symbol, employed once only, to save the
ungracefulness of words. Such a hint was quite enough for a man like
Hilary, whose delicacy, sense of the ridiculous, and peculiar faculty
of starting back and retiring into himself, put the need of anything
further out of the question. Both must have felt, too, that there was
nothing that could be explained. An anonymous double entendre was not
precisely evidence on which to found a rupture of the marital tie. The
trouble was so much deeper than that--the throbbing of a woman's wounded
self-esteem, of the feeling that she was no longer loved, which had long
cried out for revenge.

One morning in the middle of the week after this incident the innocent
author of it presented herself in Hilary's study, and, standing in her
peculiar patient attitude, made her little statements. As usual, they
were very little ones; as usual, she seemed helpless, and suggested a
child with a sore finger. She had no other work; she owed the week's
rent; she did not know what would happen to her; Mrs. Dallison did not
want her any more; she could not tell what she had done! The picture was
finished, she knew, but Mrs. Dallison had said she was going to paint
her again in another picture....

Hilary did not reply.

"....That old gentleman, Mr.--Mr. Stone, had been to see her. He wanted
her to come and copy out his book for two hours a day, from four to six,
at a shilling an hour. Ought she to come, please? He said his book would
take him years."

Before answering her Hilary stood for a full minute staring at the fire.
The little model stole a look at him. He suddenly turned and faced her.
His glance was evidently disconcerting to the girl. It was, indeed,
a critical and dubious look, such as he might have bent on a folio of
doubtful origin.

"Don't you think," he said at last, "that it would be much better for
you to go back into the country?"

The little model shook her head vehemently.

"Oh no!"

"Well, but why not? This is a most unsatisfactory sort of life."

The girl stole another look at him, then said sullenly:

"I can't go back there."

"What is it? Aren't your people nice to you?"

She grew red.

"No; and I don't want to go"; then, evidently seeing from Hilary's face
that his delicacy forbade his questioning her further, she brightened
up, and murmured: "The old gen