CHAPTER IV


Before a week had elapsed he met Miss Fancourt in Bond Street, at a
private view of the works of a young artist in "black-and-white" who had
been so good as to invite him to the stuffy scene. The drawings were
admirable, but the crowd in the one little room was so dense that he felt
himself up to his neck in a sack of wool. A fringe of people at the
outer edge endeavoured by curving forward their backs and presenting,
below them, a still more convex surface of resistance to the pressure of
the mass, to preserve an interval between their noses and the glazed
mounts of the pictures; while the central body, in the comparative gloom
projected by a wide horizontal screen hung under the skylight and
allowing only a margin for the day, remained upright dense and vague,
lost in the contemplation of its own ingredients. This contemplation sat
especially in the sad eyes of certain female heads, surmounted with hats
of strange convolution and plumage, which rose on long necks above the
others. One of the heads Paul perceived, was much the so most beautiful
of the collection, and his next discovery was that it belonged to Miss
Fancourt. Its beauty was enhanced by the glad smile she sent him across
surrounding obstructions, a smile that drew him to her as fast as he
could make his way. He had seen for himself at Summersoft that the last
thing her nature contained was an affectation of indifference; yet even
with this circumspection he took a fresh satisfaction in her not having
pretended to await his arrival with composure. She smiled as radiantly
as if she wished to make him hurry, and as soon as he came within earshot
she broke out in her voice of joy: "He's here--he's here--he's coming