In the third room they suddenly came face to face with Rivers.
"What a bit of luck!" he said, going up at once to them. "Now, Mrs. Quentyns, I shall insist upon taking you to lunch somewhere. Miss Judy, how are you? what do you think of our national picture fair?"
"Some of the pictures are lovely," she replied.
"Some!" he retorted, raising his brows. "You don't mean to say you are setting yourself up as a critic."
"Judy is an artist by nature," said Hilda for her. "Hark to her remarks with regard to the two dogs in that picture."
"They are meant to move, but they are perfectly still," said Judy; "if I drew them, I'd"—she puckered her brows—"oh, I'd see that they were gamboling about."
A young man, who was standing not far off, turned away with a red face—he happened to be the unfortunate artist. Bitter hatred of Judy filled his heart, for some of the people who were standing near tittered aloud, and remarked for the first time that the dogs were wooden.
Rivers walked with Mrs. Quentyns and Judy through the different rooms: he was an art connoisseur himself, and even dabbled in paint in a dilettante sort of fashion. He drew Judy on to make remarks, laughed and quizzed her for some ideas which he considered in advance of the times, for others which were altogether too antiquated for him to pass unchallenged.
"Oh, how Stanmore would like to hear you," he remarked, naming one of the pet artists of the New Art school. "Why, Judy, you are a democrat; we should have no Academy if we listened to you, you little rebel; but then, I forgot, of course you are a mutineer—you are true to your character through everything."
Hilda scarcely listened as the young man and the child chatted and laughed together, her heart was dwelling altogether in the future. She fancied herself even now driving to the play by her husband's side; she saw the pretty dress she meant to wear; in her mind was reflected as in a picture the image of her fair self, and the image also of the man who was still in her heart lover as well as husband. No matter for the present cloud, he was still her lover. She wondered if he would give her another tender glance, and if, as they sat side by side when the curtain was up and the actors were moving about on the stage, he would touch her hand with his, and show her in that way that she was forgiven.