Lesbia had secured a particularly pretty little corner, with a peep through the archway into the street, and a cluster of pots of geraniums—a fine splash of colour—which had been placed upon one of the benches. She drew it rapidly (she was improving so much in accurate drawing) and had begun to lay on her sky while the others were still in the process of rubbing out wrong lines. She mixed cerulean blue and flake white on her palette, and worked in yellow ochre and rose madder on her canvas, to give warmth and sunshine to the effect. She was gazing at her subject, weighing its colour-values and scheme of light and shade, when somebody came out of one of the offices which occupied the ground floor of the Pilgrims' Inn Chambers, a somebody who walked briskly towards the archway, threw a passing glance at the sketching-easel, halted, and looked back in evident hesitation. For a moment he seemed an utter stranger to Lesbia, then there surged into her mind the remembrance of the lane at Dolmadoc and the visitor who had received the "rag" intended for Derrick. The recognition appeared to be mutual. Mr. Ford lifted his hat and came back to speak to her.
"Surely it's Miss Ferrars? Well, this is really a coincidence! I've been thinking about you all day, and was going to ring up the Websters to ask for your address. I've a matter of business to settle with you. Your teacher won't mind my talking to you for a few minutes? That's all right! Well, perhaps you remember my mentioning that years ago your father and I were once in partnership? We had invented rather a good thing and had meant to patent it, but when he died it was put on the shelf. Lately I looked it up and patented it myself. It was really speculation on my part. Well, this morning fortune smiled, and I had quite a decent offer for it from a big engineering firm. I won't sell it without your signature to represent your father's share in the invention. Of course you don't understand these business affairs. Can I see your guardian any time?"
"I don't think I have a 'guardian', but you could talk to Mr. Patterson. I live with the Pattersons, 28 Park Road, Morton Common."
Mr. Ford wrote down the name and address in his notebook.
"I'll call round this evening," he volunteered. "I want to get the matter fixed up at once. It will be a stroke of luck for us both. I never thought that invention would turn up trumps after all these years. Good-bye! I have an appointment to keep and must hurry off."
He was gone, but left a very fluttered Lesbia behind him. The news was overwhelming. She knew that when her own father died there had been no provision for his wife and baby, that fact had often been cast in her teeth by Mrs. Patterson and other relations. It was her stepfather, Mr. Hilton, and her stepbrother, Paul, who had provided for her during her childhood and educated her. She had had nothing whatever of her own. Was that humiliation at last to be lifted from her? However small this luck of which Mr. Ford spoke it would seem riches to a girl possessed of no income at all.
"If it's enough to take me to Paris for even one year's painting I'd nearly stand on my head with joy," she thought. "I don't know how I'm going to live till this evening. Suppose the patent doesn't sell after all? It would be like my luck! How funny that I should meet Mr. Ford here this afternoon. It really was a coincidence, just when he had had the offer. What a horrible disappointment if the whole thing falls through. I've a feeling it will never really come off!"
But it did come off. The Goddess of Fortune, who had hitherto meted out rather Spartan treatment to Lesbia, turned her wheel and scattered favours for once. Mr. Patterson managed all the business transactions, and before the end of the summer term Lesbia found herself, if not exactly an heiress, in a position of comparative independence. There was amply enough for an art education, and that was her main concern. Instead of being obliged to carry on an uncongenial occupation she could take Mr. Moxon's advice and go to study in Paris. Miss Joyce had a cousin who was working at Mesurier's studio, and who promised to find room for Lesbia in her flat, and to initiate her into the art-student life of the place when the autumn term should commence. The blazing prospect seemed the very summit of human desire. No girl could possibly have a happier time in store for her.
Then one day there arrived for Mrs. Patterson a letter with a Canadian postmark. She opened it, read it, and handed it to Kitty, with the explanation:
"It's from Mabel Johnson. She says she's been to see the Hiltons. Minnie seems in a bad way, poor thing."