"I don't see how that can be," laughed Elisabeth; "seeing that Lady Silverhampton is a friend of mine, and I have never heard of Mr. Edgar Ford."
"But it is; it is your own unconscious influence upon me. Miss Farringdon, you don't know what you have been and what you are to me! It is only since I knew you that I have realized how little all outer things really matter, and how much inner ones do; and how it is a question of no moment who a man is, compared with what a man is. And you will go on teaching me, won't you, and letting me sit at your feet, until the man in me is always what now the artist in me is sometimes?"
"I shall like to help you if I can; I am always longing to help people, and yet so few people ever seem to want my help." And Elisabeth's eyes grew sad.
"I want it—more than I want anything in the world," replied Cecil; and he really meant it, for the artist in him was uppermost just then.
"Then you shall have it."
"Thank you—thank you more than I can ever say."
After a moment's silence Elisabeth asked—
"Are you going to Lady Silverhampton's picnic on the river to-morrow?"
"Yes; I accepted because I thought I should be sure to meet you," replied Cecil, who would have accepted the invitation of a countess if it had been to meet his bitterest foe.
"Then your forethought will be rewarded, for I am going, too," Elisabeth said.