“Tea-party,” it was cryptically entitled, with a date beneath; and on the next page, under the heading: “For tea-party,” a single figure stood out—the figure of a dowdily-dressed woman seated in a low chair, a cup in her hand, and looking up as if to speak to some one who was not yet sketched in. The drawing, in three chalks on a gray ground, was rapidly but carefully executed: one of those light and perfect things which used to fall from Fingall like stray petals from a great tree in bloom. The woman’s attitude was full of an ardent interest; from the forward thrust of her clumsily-shod foot to the tilt of her head and the high light on her eye-glasses, everything about her seemed electrified by some eager shock of ideas. “Who was talking to her—and what could he have been saying?” was the first thought the little drawing suggested. But it merely flashed through French’s mind, for he had almost instantly recognized the portrait—just touched with caricature, yet living, human, even tender—of the woman he least expected to see there. “Then she _did_ know him!” he triumphed out aloud, forgetting who was at his elbow. He flushed up at his blunder and put the book in his companion’s hand. Donald Paul stared at the page. “She—who?” French stood confounded. There she sat—Emily Morland—aquiver in every line with life and sound and colour: French could hear her very voice running up and down its happy scales! And beside him stood her lover, and did not recognize her.... “Oh—” Paul stammered at length. “It’s—you mean?” He looked again. “You think he meant it for Mrs. Morland?” Without waiting for an answer he fixed French with his large boyish gaze, and exclaimed abruptly: “Then you knew her?” “Oh, I saw her only once—just once.” French couldn’t resist laying a little stress on the _once_. But Donald Paul took the answer unresentfully. “And yet you recognized her. I suppose you’re more used than I am to Fingall’s way of drawing. Do you think he was ever very good at likenesses? I _do_ see now, of course ... but, come, I call it a caricature, don’t you?” “Oh, what does that matter?” “You mean, you think it’s so clever?” “I think it’s magnificent!” said French with emotion. The other still looked at him ingenuously, but with a dawning light of eagerness. It recalled to French the suppressed, the exaggerated warmth of his greeting on the hotel stairs. “What is it he wants of me? For he wants something.” “I never knew, either,” Paul continued, “that she and Fingall had met. Some one must have brought her here, I suppose. It’s curious.” He pondered, still holding the book. “And I didn’t know _you_ knew her,” he concluded. “Oh, how should you? She was probably unconscious of the fact herself. I spent a day with her once in the country, years ago. Naturally, I’ve never forgotten it.” Donald Paul’s eyes continued obscurely to entreat him. “That’s wonderful!”