"What did you know?"
"That you and Lucy were to fall in love with each other."
"I had done my part of it already," said he.
"Hardly that, Isadore," said Lucy, "or you would not have passed me in Kensington Gardens without speaking to me."
"But I did speak to you. It was then I learned where to find you."
"That was the second time. If I had remained away, as I ought to have done, I suppose you never would have found me."
Ayala was then taken round to see all those magnificent groups and figures which Sir Thomas would have disposed of at so many shillings apiece under the auctioneer's hammer. "It was cruel,—was it not?" said Lucy.
"He never saw them, you know," said Ayala, putting in a goodnatured word for her uncle.
"If he had," said the sculptor, "he would have doubted the auctioneer's getting anything. I have turned it all in my mind very often since, and I think that Sir Thomas was right."
"I am sure he was wrong," said Lucy. "He is very goodnatured, and nobody can be more grateful to another person than I am to him;—but I won't agree that he was right about that."