ROBERT BLUSHED AND MADE SIGNS INTENDED TO CONVEY
TO HER THAT HE HAD GOT HER LETTER AND WOULD
RESCUE HER.
“I?” said the artist, “I’m one of his most intimate friends. We were discussing you only the other day. Ods bodkin—or is that Elizabethan?—you’ve got a difficult profile—grammercy.”
“WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY PERSON, DADDY,” WHISPERED
THE GIRL.
He seemed harmless enough, poor fellow, thought the artist—you could see at a glance that the poor chap was a bit wanting—gaping and staring like that all the time ... quite young, too ... very sad ... poor fellow ... and quite harmless.
Robert was just going to make some reply when the door opened and the artist’s daughter entered.
Robert blushed to a dull beetroot shade and made signs intended to convey to her that he had got her letter and would rescue her from her father at once and take her to her aunt in Scotland. Then the artist turned round. The artist’s daughter was staring at her would-be rescuer in amazement. She had to, of course, thought Robert, with her father watching. He’d better be a bit more careful, too.
“You’ve got a sitter, Daddy?” she said.
“Yes, dear,” he said, “a gentleman of Charles the First’s court.”