"Yes. Do you ever think you'd like to go there?"

"Daresay I shall one of these days. Never know your luck. But I'm not
terrible anxious.... Well, I must be getting on."

He caught her eyes and held them.

"Come back for a moment when you're less busy. I've got something I want
to say to you."

Very slightly the colour rose in her dark cheek.

"All right," she said.

When she had gone he drew a deep breath, as though he had surmounted some
great and sudden danger. He felt that if she had refused to come he would
have risen and broken everything in the place. Now, as though he had, by
that little conversation with her, reassured himself about her, he looked
around the room. His attention was at once attracted by a man who was
sitting in the further corner, his back against the wall, opposite to him.

This was a man remarkable for his extreme thinness, for the wild lock of
black hair that fell over his forehead and almost into his eyes, and for a
certain sort of threadbare and dissolute distinction which hung about him.
Falk knew him slightly. His name was Edmund Davray, and he had lived in
Polchester now for a considerable number of years. He was an artist, and
had arrived in the town one summer on a walking tour through Glebeshire.
He had attracted attention at once by the quality of his painting, by the
volubility of his manner, and by his general air of being a person of
considerable distinction. His surname was French, but no one knew anything