"He says he is subject to nightmares, and lately he has been waking up in the middle of the night thinking that London and Liverpool had joined. Asher is right. No town ought to be more than fifty miles long. I like your description of Perugia. Every town should be walled round, now we trail into endless suburbs."
"But the Green Park is beautiful, and these evening distances!"
"Never mind the Green Park; come and have a cup of tea. Asher has bought a new picture. I'd like to show it to you. But," said Harding, "I forgot to tell you that I met your model."
"Lucy Delaney? Where?"
"Here, I met her here," said Harding, and he took Rodney's arm so that he might be able to talk to him more easily. "One evening, a week ago, I was loitering, just as I was loitering to-day, and it was at the very door of St. James's Hotel that she spoke to me."
"How did she get to London? and I didn't know that you knew her."
"A girl came up suddenly and asked me the way to the Gaiety Theatre, and I told her, adding, however, that the Gaiety Theatre was closed. 'What shall I do?' I heard her say, and she walked on; I hesitated and then walked after her. 'I beg your pardon,' I said, 'the Gaiety Theatre is closed, but there are other theatres equally good. Shall I direct you?' 'Oh, I don't know what I shall do. I have run away from home.... I have set fire to my school and have come over to London thinking that I might go on the stage.' She had set fire to her school! I never saw more winning eyes. But she's a girl men would look after, and not liking to stand talking to her in Piccadilly, I asked her to come down Berkeley Street. I was very curious to know who was this girl who had set fire to her school and had come over to London to go on the stage; and we walked on, she telling me that she had set fire to her school so that she might be able to get away in the confusion. I hoped I should not meet anyone I knew, and let her prattle on until we got to the Square. The Square shone like a ball-room with a great plume of green branches in the middle and every corner a niche of gaudy window boxes. Past us came the season's stream of carriages, the women resting against the cushions looking like finely cultivated flowers. The beauty of the Square that afternoon astonished me. I wondered how it struck Lucy. Very likely she was only thinking of her Gaiety Theatre!"
"But how did you know her name?"
"You remember it was at the corner of Berkeley Square that Evelyn Innes stood when she went to see Owen Asher for the first time, she used to tell me how she stood at the curb watching London passing by her, thinking that one day London would be going to hear her sing. As soon as there was a break in the stream of carriages I took Lucy across. We could talk unobserved in the Square, and she continued her story. 'I'm nearly seventeen,' she said, 'and I was sent back to school because I sat for a sculpture.'"
"What did you sit for?"