breast-pocket; and she did not dare, the miserable wretch without
illusions, she did not dare ask him to hand it over. They looked at each
other in silence. He nodded significantly: "Where is she now?" and she
whispered "Gone into the drawing-room. Want to see her again?" with an
archly black look which he acknowledged by a muttered, surly: "I am
damned if I do. Well, as you want to bolt like this, why don't we go
now?"

She set her lips with cruel obstinacy and shook her head. She had her
idea, her completed plan. At that moment the Fynes, still at the window
and watching like a pair of private detectives, saw a man with a long
grey beard and a jovial face go up the steps helping himself with a thick
stick, and knock at the door. Who could he be?

He was one of Miss de Barral's masters. She had lately taken up painting
in water-colours, having read in a high-class woman's weekly paper that a
great many princesses of the European royal houses were cultivating that
art. This was the water-colour morning; and the teacher, a veteran of
many exhibitions, of a venerable and jovial aspect, had turned up with
his usual punctuality. He was no great reader of morning papers, and
even had he seen the news it is very likely he would not have understood
its real purport. At any rate he turned up, as the governess expected
him to do, and the Fynes saw him pass through the fateful door.

He bowed cordially to the lady in charge of Miss de Barral's education,
whom he saw in the hall engaged in conversation with a very good-looking
but somewhat raffish young gentleman. She turned to him graciously:
"Flora is already waiting for you in the drawing-room."

The cultivation of the art said to be patronized by princesses was