She learned from Sal that the visitor had been into the studio and seen Mr. Osmond, and to the studio she accordingly bent her steps. Osmond was not working. He was seated on the edge of the "throne," his palette and brushes idle beside him, his face hidden in his hands. At the sound of the opening door, he leaped to his feet, and faced his sister half angrily.
"You startled me," said he.
"I am sorry. I hear you had a visitor to-day, so I came to know what he said."
"Oh, yes—Cranmer. He didn't say very much. Asked after you all; said he hoped you were not very tired after the dance; said he was looking forward to seeing you at his sister's. Not much besides. He seems very thick with this Mr. Percivale."
Turning aside, he aimlessly took up a dry brush and drew it across a finished canvas in slow sweeps.
"Wyn," he asked, "who is this Mr. Percivale?"
Wyn made a gesture of ignorance with her hands.
"I don't know," she said. "Nobody knows much about him. Mr. Cranmer told me all he knows the other evening." She related the meagre facts which Claud had given her. "But everyone seems agreed that he is very much all that can be wished," said she. "What made you ask me, dear?"
"I have been talking to Ottilie Orton," he said; and paused.
"To Mrs. Orton! And what had she to say, if one may ask?"