He let his eyes rest upon the angel lest their radiance should betray him. In the thrill of consciousness which his new knowledge—the knowledge of their mutual secret—gave him, he could hardly keep from smiling.
"Is this the treasure you found in Italy?" he asked somewhat hoarsely.
"Yes; do you like it?"
"I think it beautiful! I am learning to know beauty when I see it, you know."
"Learning to know beauty when you see it, Captain Brooke! Didn't know gentlemen had to be taught that, as a rule!" cried Theo, laughing affectedly.
"You make a great mistake, Miss Cooper," said Lance. "Beauty requires a trained eye. Which do you suppose a ploughman would rather hang on his cottage wall—a Rembrandt etching, or a chromo-lithograph of the Royal family on an almanack?"
"Oh, aren't you confusing beauty and art?" said Melicent, finding her voice again.
Theo, who had never heard of a Rembrandt etching, looked blank.
"Mrs. Helston sent us to fetch you in to tea," she said. "Come, Mr. Burmester, we had better let Melicent continue her treatise on beauty."
"She's well qualified to teach, by precept and example," said Lance, with tender gallantry, standing aside to let his betrothed and Captain Brooke pass out.