Lady Sellingworth listened to all this with an air of polite, but rather detached, interest, wondering all the time whether Craven could overhear what was being said. Craven was sometimes talking to his neighbour, Mrs. Farringdon, but occasionally their conversation dropped, and Lady Sellingworth was aware of his sitting in silence. She wished, and yet almost feared, to talk to him, but she knew that she was interested in no one else in the room. Now that she was again with Craven she realized painfully how much she had missed him. Among all these people, many of them talented, clever, even fascinating, she was only concerned about him. To her he seemed almost like a vital human being in the midst of a crowd of dummies endowed by some magic with the power of speech. She only felt him at this moment, though she was conscious of the baron, Mrs. Ackroyde, Bobbie Syng, the duchess, and others who were near her. This silent boy--he was still a boy in comparison with her--crumbling his bread, wiped them all out. Yet he was no cleverer than they were, no more vital than they. And half of her almost hated him still. “Oh, why do I worry about him?” she thought, while she leaned towards the baron and looked energetically into his shifting dark eyes. “What is there in him that holds me and tortures me? He’s only an ordinary man--horribly ordinary, I know that.” And she thought of Camber Sands and the twilight, and saw Craven seeking for Beryl’s hand--footman and housemaid. What had she, Adela Sellingworth, with her knowledge and her past, her great burden of passionate experiences--what had she to do with such an ordinary young man? “Nicolas might possibly be Greek or Russian. But what are we to make of Arabian?” It was still the voice of the Baron--full, energetic, intensely un-English. “Have you heard the name before, Lady Sellingworth?” “Yes,” she said. “Really! What country does it belong to? Surely not to our England?” “No.” Craven was not speaking at this moment, and she felt that he was listening to them. She remembered how Beryl had hurt her and, speaking with deliberate clearness, she added: “Garstin, the painter, has had this man, Nicolas Arabian, as a sitter for a long time, certainly for a good many weeks. And Beryl is just now intensely interested in portrait painting.” “What--he’s a model! But with a flat in Rose Tree Gardens!” “He is evidently not an ordinary model. I believe Mr. Garstin picked him up somewhere, saw him by chance, probably at the Cafe Royal or some place of that kind, and asked him to sit.” “Do you know him?” asked the Baron, with sharp curiosity. “Oh, no! I have never set eyes upon him. Beryl told me.” “Miss Van Tuyn! We all thought she was trying to keep the whole matter a secret.” “Well, she told me quite openly. You were there, weren’t you?” She turned rather abruptly to Craven. He started. “What? I beg your pardon. I didn’t catch what you were saying.” “He’s lying!” she thought.