question both his fever and his chill, and the only thing he touched with judgment was this convenience of my friendship.  He doubtless told me his simple story, but the matter comes back in a kind of sense of my being rather the mouthpiece, of my having had to put it together for him.  He took it from me in this form without a groan, and I gave it him quite as it came; he took it again and again, spending his odd half-hours with me as if for the very purpose of learning how idiotically he was in love.  He told me I made him see things: to begin with, hadn’t I first made him see Flora Saunt?  I wanted him to give her up and lucidly informed him why; on which he never protested nor contradicted, never was even so alembicated as to declare just for the sake of the point that he wouldn’t.  He simply and pointlessly didn’t, and when at the end of three months I asked him what was the use of talking with such a fellow his nearest approach to a justification was to say that what made him want to help her was just the deficiencies I dwelt on.  I could only reply without gross developments: “Oh if you’re as sorry for her as that!”  I too was nearly as sorry for her as that, but it only led me to be sorrier still for other victims of this compassion.  With Dawling as with me the compassion was at first in excess of any visible motive; so that when eventually the motive was supplied each could to a certain extent compliment the other on the fineness of his foresight.

After he had begun to haunt my studio Miss Saunt quite gave it up, and I finally learned that she accused me of conspiring with him to put pressure on her to marry him.  She didn’t know I would take it that way, else she would never have brought him to see me.  It was in her view a part of the conspiracy that to show him a kindness I asked him at last to sit to me.  I dare say moreover she was disgusted to hear that I had ended by attempting almost as many sketches of his beauty as I had attempted of hers.  What was the value of tributes to beauty by a hand that could so abase itself?  My relation to poor Dawling’s want of modelling was simple enough.  I was really digging in that sandy desert for the buried treasure of his soul.

CHAPTER VI

It befell at this period, just before Christmas, that on my having gone under pressure of the season into a great shop to buy a toy or two, my eyes fleeing from superfluity, lighted at a distance on the bright concretion of Flora Saunt, an exhibitability that held its own even against the most plausible pinkness of the most developed dolls.  A huge quarter of the place, the biggest bazaar “on earth,” was peopled with these and other effigies and fantasies, as well as with purchasers and vendors haggard alike, in the blaze of the gas, with hesitations.  I was just about to appeal to Flora to avert that stage of my errand when I saw that she was accompanied by a gentleman whose identity, though more than a year had elapsed, came back to me from the Folkestone cliff.  It had been associated on that scene with showy knickerbockers; at present it overflowed more splendidly into a fur-trimmed overcoat.  Lord Iffield’s presence made me waver an instant before crossing over, and during that instant Flora, blank and undistinguishing, as if she too were after all weary of alternatives, looked straight across at me.  I was on the point of raising my hat to her when I observed that her face gave no sign.  I was exactly in the line of her vision, but she either didn’t see me or didn’t recognise me, or else had a reason to pretend she didn’t.  Was her reason that I had displeased her and that she wished to punish me?  I had always thought it one of her merits that she wasn’t vindictive.  She at any rate simply looked away; and at this moment one of the shop-girls, who had apparently gone off in search of it, bustled up to her with a small mechanical toy.  It so happened that I followed closely what then took place, afterwards recognising that I had been led to do so, led even through the crowd to press nearer for the purpose, by an impression of which in the act I was not fully conscious.

Flora with the toy in her hand looked round at her companion; then seeing his attention had been solicited in another quarter she moved away with the shop-girl, who had evidently offered to conduct her into the presence of more objects of the same sort.  When she reached the indicated spot I was in a position still to observe her.  She had asked some question about the working of the toy, and the girl, taking it herself, began to explain the little secret.  Flora bent her head over it, but she clearly didn’t understand.  I saw her, in a manner that quickened my curiosity, give a glance back at the place from which she had come.  Lord Iffield was talking with another young person; she satisfied herself of this by the aid of a question addressed to her own attendant.  She then drew closer to the table near which she stood and, turning her back to me, bent her head lower over the collection of toys and more particularly over the small object the girl had attempted to explain.  She took it again and, after a moment, with her face well averted, made an odd motion of her arms and a significant little duck of her head.  These slight signs, singular as it may appear, produced in my bosom an agitation so great that I failed to notice Lord Iffield’s whereabouts.  He had rejoined her; he was close upon her before I knew it or before she knew it herself.  I felt at that instant the strangest of all promptings: if it could have operated more rapidly it would have caused me to dash between them in some such manner as to give Flora a caution.  In fact as it was I think I could have done this in time had I not been checked by a curiosity stronger still than my impulse.  There were three seconds during which I saw the young man and yet let him come on.  Didn’t I make the quick calculation that if he didn’t catch what Flora was doing I too might perhaps not catch it?  She at any rate herself took the alarm.  On perceiving her companion’s nearness she made, still averted, another duck of her head and a shuffle of her hands so precipitate that a little tin steamboat she had been holding escaped from them and rattled down to the floor with a sharpness that I hear at this hour.  Lord Iffield had already seized her arm; with a violent jerk he brought her round toward him.  Then it was that there met my eyes a quite distressing sight: this exquisite creature, blushing, glaring, exposed, with a pair of big black-rimmed eye-glasses, defacing her by their position, crookedly astride of her beautiful nose.  She made a grab at them with her free hand while I turned confusedly away.

CHAPTER VII

I don’t remember how soon it was I spoke to Geoffrey Dawling; his sittings were irregular, but it was certainly the very next time he gave me one.

“Has any rumour ever reached you of Miss Saunt’s having anything the matter with her eyes?”  He stared with a candour that was a sufficient answer to my question, backing it up with a shocked and mystified “Never!”  Then I asked him if he had observed in her any symptom, however disguised, of embarrassed sight; on which, after a moment’s thought, he exclaimed “Disguised?” as if my use of that word had vaguely awakened a train.  “She’s not a bit myopic,” he said; “she doesn’t blink or contract her lids.”  I fully recognised this and I mentioned that she altogether denied the impeachment; owing it to him moreover to explain the ground of my inquiry, I gave him a sketch of the incident that had taken place before me at the shop.  He knew all about Lord Iffield; that nobleman had figured freely in our conversation as his preferred, his injurious rival.  Poor Dawling’s contention was that if there had been a definite engagement between his lordship and the young lady, the sort of thing that was announced in the Morning Post, renunciation and retirement would be