‘The model is on the top shelf in your working place. Although you don’t like tidiness, I have been putting everything as straight as I could get it to-day.’
‘Like the good forgiving girl that you are! My dear child, I confess I have idled through this week disgracefully. Not to speak of yesterday’s dinner, of the old Colonel’s breakfast, of the best hours wasted—those wretched cards again—to-day, there was the initial mistake of being left behind in Alderney.’
‘You were left behind there, I think, for your own pleasure?’
‘I am not so sure of that. The scheme, any way, did not turn out a success. Max Grimsby is the best fellow living—but one-ideaed. You cannot get him to move, save in a circle. He is tethered to Max Grimsby’s pictures. If the sun had shone he would have taken me round, among rocks and places, to ‘verify’ his sketches, as he says, by nature. There was a most disgusting fog. I could be taken nowhere. I bored myself to extinction in Alderney. I——’
‘Gaston,’ exclaimed Dinah, fierily, ‘don’t say things of this kind, if you please. The time is past for them. I know about the wager you had with Mrs. Thorne before you left the steamer.’
‘Then you know about a very foolish matter.’ Gaston spoke with prompt self-control, although he reddened. ‘You have certainly been tidying with a vengeance, my love,’ he went on, looking round him. ‘I miss a dozen landmarks. What has become of my own priceless portraits?’ Wherever they lived poor Dinah loved to hang Gaston’s three or four latest photographs upon the walls of her sitting-room. ‘I do not see your embroidery frame, or——’
‘Yes,’ she again interrupted. ‘I know about Mrs. Thorne’s wager, about everything. It is a relief to speak plain at last. I have known, for a good long time past, that you deceived me.’
Down came Gaston Arbuthnot’s feet to their normal level. Away flew all his assumption of serenity. A couple of quick strides brought him across the room.
‘If you are bent on having one of our wretched scenes, Dinah, look, pray, to your language, as far as I am concerned. Say what you choose about Mrs. Thorne, if it gives you pleasure. Say what you like, of course, about yourself. Don’t use disagreeable expressions when you speak of me! I’m the kind of conceited fellow whose love really won’t stand rough usage. My love for you is the best possession I have. I don’t want to risk my best possession. You understand?’