'If I could only do something like that!' she said, pointing to a study
of some of the famous windows at Rheims, with vague forms of saint and
king emerging from a conflagration of colour, kindled by the afternoon
sun, and dyeing the pavement below.

'Ah, that took me some time. It was difficult. But here are some
fragments you'll like--just bits from the façade and the monuments.'

The strength of the handling excited her. She looked at them in silence;
remembering with disgust all the pretty sentimental work she had been
used to copy. She began to envisage what this commonly practised art
may be; what a master can do with it. Standards leaped up. Alp on Alp
appeared. When George was gone she would _work_, yes, she would work
hard--to surprise him when he came back.

Sir William meanwhile was increasingly taken with his guest. She was
shy, very diffident, very young; but in the few things she said, he
discerned--or fancied--the stirrings of a real taste--real intelligence.
And she was prettier and more fetching than ever--with her small dark
head, and her lovely mouth. He would like to draw the free sensuous line
of it, the beautiful moulding of the chin. What a prize for the young
man! Was he aware of his own good fortune? Was he adequate?

'I say, how jolly!' said Sarratt, coming up to look. 'My wife, Sir
William--I think she told you--has got a turn for this kind of thing.
These will give her ideas.'

And while he looked at the drawings, he slipped a hand into his wife's
arm, smiling down upon her, and commenting on the sketches. There was