"You're more than ordinarily pretty to-day," he said.
"Am I? What you mean, I suppose, is that you like my gown. It's a new one. I'm wearing it for the first time, especially for you."
She turned her laughing face towards him, violet eyes, flushed cheeks, golden hair, white teeth—everything aflash with instant gratitude. The discovery of how easily he could command her happiness touched him.
"Can I make you as merry as all that just by telling you you're beautiful?"
She compressed her lips and nodded. "It's not being told. That doesn't matter. It's being told by you."
He felt for the moment that he had recovered her—that he had bridged the gulf of the years that divided. Before anything further could be said, they were halting in Mulberry Tree Court.
III
On entering the house with the marigold-tinted curtains he had glanced round casually for any signs of Lady Dawn. After Porter had shown him into the drawing-room Terry had left him to go in search of Maisie. He walked over to the tall French-windows and found himself once more gazing out on the garden-rockery with its oval lake, its silent fountain and its toy-boat that never sailed anywhere. He made an effort to continue gazing out, for his impulse was to turn and look at the portrait over
the fireplace. He tantalized himself by trying to ignore it. But it was strange the fascination that it held for him. He had the feeling that behind his back the face had changed from the profile position in which it had been painted, so that the steady stone-gray eyes were challenging his attention. At last he resisted no longer; walking over to the fireplace, he stood gazing up at it.
For a moment he tried to pretend to himself that his interest was purely an art-interest. It was Sargent's brush-work that he was admiring. Then he smiled, as much to the portrait as to himself. "Princess Czarina Bolsheviki," he murmured, "were you really looking at me when my back was turned? Did you flash your eyes away directly I obeyed your desire? It's the trick of every woman; but you're not like every woman, Princess Czarina Bolsheviki."