for the rest of his days was firmly lashed to his back. I don't
mean by this that Flora had been persuaded to contract her scope; I

mean that he had been treated to the unconditional snub which, as
the event was to show, couldn't have been bettered as a means of

securing him. She hadn't calculated, but she had said "Never!" and
that word had made a bed big enough for his long-legged patience.

He became from this moment to my mind the interesting figure in the
piece.

Now that he had acted without my aid I was free to show him this,
and having on his own side something to show me he repeatedly

knocked at my door. What he brought with him on these occasions
was a simplicity so huge that, as I turn my ear to the past, I seem

even now to hear it bumping up and down my stairs. That was really
what I saw of him in the light of his behaviour. He had fallen in

love as he might have broken his leg, and the fracture was of a
sort that would make him permanently lame. It was the whole man

who limped and lurched, with nothing of him left in the same
position as before. The tremendous cleverness, the literary

society, the political ambition, the Bournemouth sisters all seemed
to flop with his every movement a little nearer to the floor. I

hadn't had an Oxford training and I had never encountered the great
man at whose feet poor Dawling had most submissively sat and who

had addressed him his most destructive sniffs; but I remember
asking myself how effectively this privilege had supposed itself to

prepare him for the career on which my friend appeared now to have
embarked. I remember too making up my mind about the cleverness,

which had its uses and I suppose in impenetrable shades even its
critics, but from which the friction of mere personal intercourse

was not the sort of process to extract a revealing spark. He
accepted without a 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 visiblemotive; so

that when eventually the motive was supplied each could to a
certain extentcompliment 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