“Oh, well, let it pass.”
“If you mean——Of course, I can send the money back.”
He looked at her with a curious and wondering severity.
“I shouldn’t do that, Gertrude. Some people are rather sensitive.”
Canterton went into the library after dinner, before going up to say “good night” to Lynette. Within the last two days some knowledge of the Carfaxes and their life had come to him, fortuitously, and yet with a vividness that had roused his sympathy. For though James Canterton had never lacked for money, he had that intuitive vision that gives a man understanding and compassion.
His glance fell upon the manuscript of “The Book of the English Garden” lying open on his desk. An idea struck him. Why should not Eve Carfax give the colour to this book? To judge by her portrait of Guinevere, hers was the very art that he needed.
CHAPTER V
EVE ENTERS THE WILDERNESS
Eve Carfax read James Canterton’s letter at breakfast, and her mother, who like many passive people, was vapidly inquisitive, wanted to know when the letter had come, why it had been written, what it said, and what it did not say.