“All?” queried the red-haired man from his easy-chair. We looked round. The lady of the skirt had entered, now her own proper self: a young girl of about fifteen, angular, awkward-looking, but bringing into the room with her that atmosphere of life, of hope, that is the eternal message of youth. She was not beautiful, not then—plain one might almost have called her but for her frank, grey eyes, her mass of dark-brown hair now gathered into a long thick plait. A light came into old Deleglise's eyes.
“You are right, not all,” he murmured to the red-haired man.
She came forward shyly. I found it difficult to recognise in her the flaming Fury that a few minutes before had sprung at me from the billows of her torn blue skirt. She shook hands with the red-haired man and kissed her father.
“My daughter,” said old Deleglise, introducing me to her. “Mr. Paul Kelver, a literary gent.”
“Mr. Kelver and I have met already,” she explained. “He has been waiting for you here in the studio.”
“And have you been entertaining him?” asked Deleglise. “Oh, yes, I entertained him,” she replied. Her voice was singularly like her father's, with just the same suggestion of ever a laugh behind it.
“We entertained each other,” I said.
“That's all right,” said old Deleglise. “Stop and lunch with us. We will make ourselves a curry.”