After lunch the two in the picture gallery passed a perfectly delightful half-hour. Mr. Strobridge had sagacity enough to know that he must stick loyally to art, and indeed after the first few minutes he found he was carried away himself, his listener was so interested, and gave such intelligent response. He almost began to believe that she had really come there to learn something; and not to flirt with himself! Her taste also surprised him, and her want of all pose.

She wrote systematically the reflections he made as to the condition of the canvases.

"It is a great thing to learn how to look at pictures," she said when they halted before a particularly primitive Madonna. "Of course I could not have seen anything to admire in this if I had come by myself, and I do not suppose that I shall ever be able really to appreciate it—except the colour—because there is something in me which likes the real so much better than the ideal; I like prose far more than poetry, for instance."

"Will you let me come up again to the schoolroom and read to you some day?"

"I should like that very much."

"I would try to make you love poetry; you are endeavouring to convince me that you are a very material young woman, you know!"

"Well, I suppose I am material. I like facts and solid things."

"And yet you spoke of dreamland once not so very long ago—do you remember!"

"Yes—but you do not know that this dreamland of mine may not be a place where wished-for facts and solid things appear realities, not fancies."

"You would not tell me if I asked you; I recollect how you eluded me before, and said it was a place which only admitted yourself."

"Even materialists must have some corner where they can be alone."

Then he questioned her.—How had she learned all that she knew?—And his interest did not diminish when she gave him a brief outline of the manner of her education.

"It was very difficult sometimes, because I never had anyone with whom to talk, and one grows one-sided if one has only oneself to argue with, and I don't really know how to pronounce numbers of words. I should be grateful if you would tell me every time I make a mistake."

"It is quite evident that we must ratify this compact that I shall be your tutor, though I am to get no wages—even love!"

"Who would be supposed to give the love?"

Her strange eyes glanced at him provokingly for a second, and then resumed their steady look. He was quite uncertain as to whether in this there lay a challenge.—He proceeded to act as if there did.

"When I come up to give my first lesson I will tell you all about the giving—and taking—of love."

"That would be of no advantage to either of us. Love is a thing which can cause only pain."

"You are quite mistaken—it is the only divine joy in this unsatisfactory world."

Her face changed; she felt this was cruelly true—and she did not wish to be reminded of the fact.

"You shall only come to the schoolroom if you talk sense. I will not listen to a word of speculation about love; it is pure waste of time—but in any case I do not see how you can come there at all. I would not receive you without Her Ladyship's permission—it was very kind of her to let me have this afternoon."

"What a circumspect darling!"

Miss Bush looked at him with scorn.

"I am not a darlings—I am a lower middle class young woman, trying to learn how to be a lady, and whatever you think, if you want to be with me, you will have to treat me as if I had arrived at my goal already."

"I think you have, but the greatest ladies are often darlings."

"Yes, but married men do not tell them so, on very short acquaintance, Mr. Strobridge."

In his case he felt this was rather true, since he never spoke to girls at all if he could help it. He suddenly wondered in what light he really did consider her?—As an abstract and quite adorably provoking woman, he supposed.

"Is there anything else to be written down?" she asked. She had become the conventional secretary. "Because if not, I must go back to my work."

"My aunt gave me full permission to keep you for two hours. I told her all we had to do would take quite that time."

"Well, you see it has not—we have come to the end of the gallery."

"Then there is a very comfortable sofa not too far from the fire, where we could sit down and discuss what we have learned."

They walked to it. As long as he was being of some use to her Katherine Bush desired his company. So they talked uninterruptedly until dusk fell, and the footmen would soon be coming to close shutters and draw curtains.

They flitted from subject to subject, Gerard Strobridge exerting his brain to interest and amuse her, in a way that he had seldom done with Englishwomen, even of his own class. Her receptive power was exceptional, and she was completely frank. She was honestly and deeply interested in all he had to say, and the subtle flattery of this was eminently soothing. He began to take pride in his pupil. They touched upon the spirit of the Renaissance and its origin—and upon all the glorious flood of light which it brought to art and learning. He was astonished to find her so advanced in certain branches of literature, and absolutely ignorant of the names even of others—showing that it had merely been chance and no helping hand which had guided her.

"I must send you some books upon the Renaissance," he said, "if you will let me."

"That will be very kind—If I had had some master to give me an idea what to read, as a kind of basis to go upon, it would have been much better, but I had no guide—only if I saw one subject that I did not know about mentioned in what I was reading, I looked it up, but of course with really educated people there must be some plan."

"Well, shall we begin upon the Renaissance; that is rather a favourite period of mine?"

"Yes—do you not wonder if we shall ever have another?—What a lot of good it would do us, would it not?"

"Probably—some learned professors think that we must go through a second series of dark ages first; when we shall get back to primitive ideas—and primitive passions."

"It may be,—nearly everything natural is distorted now; the world seems so tired to me, just looking on."

He stretched himself and threw out his arms—as it were to break some imaginary bonds.

"Yes—we have been coerced into false morals and manners—and we have suppressed most things which make life worth having—sometimes I envy the beasts."

"I never do that—it is only weaklings who are coerced; the strong do what they please, even in these days—but however strong a beast may be, he always finds, as Jack London shows with his wonderful Buck in 'The Call of the Wild,' that there is invariably 'the man with the club.'"

"You mean to conquer fate, then?"

"I shall do my very best to obtain my desires, and of course shall have to pay for all my mistakes."

He looked at her curiously—had she made any mistakes? Not many, he thought, her regard was so serene, and her clever, strong face showed no vacillation. He suddenly faced the fact that he was falling in love with her, not as he had tried to do with LÄo—not even as he had once succeeded in doing with Alice Southerwood, long ago. There was a quality in his present feeling which almost frightened him, it was so lawless.

She felt his eyes searching hers burningly, and rose from the sofa.

"Now I am going to have my tea—so good-bye for to-day. I have really enjoyed the pictures."

"May not I come and have tea with you? I am all alone."

"Certainly not—Martha would be scandalised. It does seem so extraordinary that I should have to tell you such things—it shows either great disrespect to me, or else—"

"What?" eagerly. He had risen, too, and was following her as she walked down the long room.

"—That you cannot help yourself."

"Yes—that is it. You have bewitched me in some way—I cannot help myself."

"Do you want all I have taken down typewritten? I can do it after tea, if so?"

"And you will sit up there all by yourself from now until you go to bed?"

"Of course."

"You must feel awfully solitary."

"Not in the least. I have books which are the most agreeable companions. They have no independent moods—you can be sure of them, and pick up those which suit yourself. Good-night."

And she turned at the bend of the great staircase from which the gallery opened, and rapidly walked on to the entrance to her passage.

He looked after her with a rapt face, and then he went discontentedly down into the library, and waited for his aunt's return.

He was extremely disturbed; it was horribly tantalizing to feel that this girl whom he was so passionately drawn to, was there in the house with him, and that he might not talk with her further, or be in her presence.

He walked up and down the room—and those who knew the casual Gerard Strobridge, cultivated, polished and self-contained, would have been greatly surprised could they have seen his agitated pacings.

Lady Garribardine had a quizzical eye when she finally came in—how had the afternoon progressed? Her opinion of the mental balance of her secretary was exceedingly high. She felt convinced that she would know exactly how to tackle her nephew, and if Gerard desired to amuse himself he would certainly do so whether she smiled upon the affair or not!

It did strike her that he was rather a dangerous creature to be left a free hand with any young woman—and that after to-day she would see that Katherine ran no more risks from too much of his company.

The pupils of his eyes were rather dilated, she noticed; otherwise he seemed his usual self at tea—and when Colonel Hawthorne left them alone, she got him to read to her, and did not mention her secretary at all.

The afternoon had been most instructive, Katherine thought, as she ate her muffin, and looked at the papers before the old schoolroom fire. She had learned a quantity of things. Mr. Strobridge was undoubtedly a charming man, and she wondered what effect he would have had upon her if she had never met Algy? As it was he mattered no more than a chair or a table, he was just part of her game. And he was rapidly approaching the state when she could obtain complete dominion over him.

"He knows quite well that he is married and that I can never honestly be anything to him. He is only coming after me because he is attracted and is not master of his passions or his will. If he is a weakling he must pay the price—I shall not care! He is not thinking in the least as to whether or no it will hurt me—he is only thinking of himself, just like Bob Hartley, only he is a gentleman and therefore does not make any hypocritical promises to try to lure me."

And then she laughed softly. "Well, whatever comes is on his own head, I need have no mercy upon him!"

So she calmly finished her tea and wrote to Matilda whose excited letter with the family news of Gladys' secret marriage she had not yet replied to. Gladys had written her a little missive also—full of thanks for her part in the affair. Bob was being rather rude and unkind to her about it, she said, but it was not altogether his fault, because on Christmas night he had had rather too much to drink, and had been quarrelsome for two days since. She was going to keep the expected event from being known as long as possible, and then she supposed they would go and live somewhere together. It would be wretched poverty and struggle, and she was miserable, but at least she felt an "honest woman," and could not be grateful enough to her sister for bringing this state of things about. Katherine stared into the fire while she thought over it all. It seemed to her too astonishing that a woman should prefer a life tied to a man who was reluctant to keep her—his drudge and the object of his scorn—to one of her own arranging in America, perhaps—along with the child, but free. Gladys had sufficient talent in her trade to have earned good wages anywhere, and must have enough money saved, could she have got it from Matilda's fond guardian clutches, to have tided over the time. But weaklings must always suffer and be other people's slaves and tools. Poor Gladys! Then she fell to thinking of Algy—why was he haunting her? For the first month the complacent satisfaction from the conquest of self had upheld her splendidly, but now the pain felt as keen as on the first day of separation.

She would crush it.

Except on the path coming out of church she had no words with Mr. Strobridge on the morrow—and then it was only a few sentences of ordinary greeting. Lady Garribardine claimed his entire attention. She did see him from the window, smoking a cigar in the rose garden in the afternoon, whither he had come from the smoking-room. She deliberately let him catch sight of her, as she stood there, and she marked the look of eager joy on his face, and then she moved away and did not appear again.

So the Monday arrived—the last day of the old year.

Lady Garribardine was having no party for it as was her usual custom; her rheumatism was rather troublesome, and she stayed in the house all the day, up in her boudoir, where Katherine was in constant attendance.

Gerard and Colonel Hawthorne were out rabbiting with the keepers in the park, and only came in to tea.

Katherine found her mistress rather exacting and difficult to please, and she felt tired and cross—so it gave her some kind of satisfaction to be as provoking as possible when she was ordered to pour out the tea for the shooters in the sitting-room. She remained perfectly silent, but every now and then allowed her magnetic eyes to meet Mr. Strobridge's with the sphinxlike smile in them.

On his side Gerard had found the hours hell.—He knew he was now madly in love with this exasperating girl, and that she was exercising the most powerful attraction upon him.

He gazed at her as she sat there, white and sensuous-looking, her red lips pouting, and her grey-green eyes full of some unconscious challenge, and gradually wild excitement grew in his blood.

As soon as her actual duties were over, Katherine said respectfully:

"If Your Ladyship has no more need of me, I must get some letters finished before the post goes."

And when a nod of assent was given, she quietly left the room.

So Gerard Strobridge knew he would see her no more that night; and there would be a boring dinner with the parson, and his wife and daughter, to be got through, and on the morrow he was returning to town!

For the first time in their lives he felt resentful towards his aunt. That Seraphim should not have been more sympathetic, and have made some opportunity for him to talk again to Katherine, was quite too bad!

She, who usually understood all his moods and wants! Her silence upon the subject of her secretary, ever since her return from that drive, was ominous, now that he thought about it. Evidently he need hope for no further coÖperation from her, and because he was feeling so deeply, he could not act in the casual and intelligent way to secure his ends which he would have used on other occasions. So the incredibly wearisome evening passed. The guests left early, and Lady Garribardine went gladly to bed, leaving her nephew and Colonel Hawthorne to drink in the New Year together—the New Year of 1912.

But the old gentleman was fatigued with his day's shooting and when half-past eleven came he was glad to slink off to his friendly couch.

Thus Gerard was alone.

He lit a cigar and stretched himself in a huge leather armchair, an untouched drink close at hand.

The house was quite silent. He had told Bronson that he would put out the lights in the smoking-room when they left. No one was about and not a breath of wind stirred a tree outside.

He sat there for some minutes—and then his heart began to beat violently.

Whose was that soft footfall directly overhead? With the departure of the grandchildren from the old nurseries there was no one left in the wing but Katherine Bush!

All sorts of visions came to him; she had not yet gone to bed—perhaps she, too, was waiting for the New Year?

He got up and listened, his pulses bounding so that he seemed to hear his heart thumping against his side.

There was the sound again!

It was not to be endured. Fierce emotion shook him, and at last all restraint fell from him, and passion became lord.

Then he extinguished the lights and softly crept up the stairs.