He was away some little time, and returned, bubbling, to the studio.
"She's been cross-examining me about her poems! I had to confess I hadn't read a word of them. And now she's offered to recite next time she comes! Good Heavens—how can I get out of it? I believe, Doris, she's hooked that young idiot! She told me she was engaged to him. Do you know anything of his people?"
The girl accountant suddenly came forward. She looked flushed and distressed.
"I do!" she said, with energy. "Can't somebody stop that? It will break their hearts!"
Doris and Uncle Charles looked at her in amazement.
"Whose hearts?" said the painter.
"Lord and Lady Dunstable's."
"You know them?" exclaimed Doris.
"I used to know them—quite well," said the girl, quietly. "My father had one of Lord Dunstable's livings. He died last year. He didn't like Lady Dunstable. He quarrelled with her, because—because she once did a very rude thing to me. But this would be too awful! And poor Lord Dunstable! Everybody likes him. Oh—it must be stopped!—it must!"