She held out her hand, and, he took it and helped her up. But she tottered a little before she got her balance (or made, at least, a feint of doing so), and grasped his hand tight as if to save herself, and all but fell into his arms. He drew back a step. She looked straight into his eyes. “You’re a goose, and a hypocrite, and a prig, and—a dear,” she said. V. Their tea was served in the garden, and whilst they were dallying over it, a footman brought Johannah a visiting-card. She glanced at the card; and Will, watching her, noticed that a look of annoyance—it might even have been a look of distress—came into her face. Then she threw the card on the tea-table, and rose. “I shan’t be gone long,” she said, and set out for the house. The card lay plainly legible under the eyes of Will and Madame Dornaye. “Mr. George Aymer, 36, Boulevard Rochechouart” was the legend inscribed upon it. “Tiens,” said Madame Dornaye; “Jeanne told me she had ceased to see him.” Will suppressed a desire to ask, “Who is he?” But Madame Dornaye answered him all the same. “You have heard of him? He is a known personage in Paris, although English. He is a painter, a painter of great talent; very young, but already decorated. And of a surprising beauty—the face of an angel. With that, a thorough-paced rascal. Oh, yes, whatever is vilest, whatever is basest. Even in Montmartre, even in the corruptest world of Paris, among the lowest journalists and painters, he is notorious for his corruption. Johannah used to see a great deal of him. She would not believe the evil stories that were told about him. And with his rare talent and his beautiful face, he has the most plausible manners, the most winning address. We were afraid that she might end by marrying him. But at last she found him out for herself, and gave him up. She told me she had altogether ceased to see him. I wonder what ill wind blows him here.” Johannah entered the drawing-room. A man in grey tweeds, the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour gleaming in his buttonhole, was standing near a window: a man, indeed, as Madame Dornaye had described him, with a face of surprising beauty—a fine, clear, open-air complexion, a clean-cut, even profile, a sensitive, soft mouth, big, frank, innocent blue eyes, and waving hair of the palest Saxon yellow. He could scarcely have been thirty; and the exceeding beauty of his face, its beauty and its sweetness, made one overlook his figure, which was a trifle below the medium height, and thick-set, with remarkably square, broad shoulders, and long arms. Johannah greeted him with some succinctness. “What do you want?” she asked, remaining close to the door. “I want to have a talk with you,” he answered, moving towards her. He drawled slightly; his voice was low and soft, conciliatory, caressing almost. And his big blue eyes shone with a faint, sweet, appealing smile. “Would you mind staying where you are?” said she. “You can make yourself audible from across the room.”