"When I said no party I did not mean quite alone," said the Duchess, breathing heavily, for a frontal attack is generally also an uphill one. "A few cheerful friends. How right you are! One does not see enough of one's real friends. Anne often says that. She said to me only yesterday, when we were talking of you----" The two liars were interrupted by the advance towards them of Anne and De Rivaz. They came silently across the shadowy grass, into the little ring of light thrown by the Chinese lantern. De Rivaz was evidently excited. His worn, cynical face looked boyish in the garish light. "Duchess," he said, "I have only just heard by chance from Lady Anne, that the unknown divinity whom I am turning heaven and earth to find, in order that I may paint her, has actually been staying under your roof, and that you intend to ask her again." "Mr De Rivaz means Janet Black," said Anne to her mother. "I implore you to ask me to meet her," said the painter. "But she is just going to be married," said the Duchess, with genuine regret. Here was an opportunity lost. "I know it; it breaks my heart to know it," said De Rivaz. "But married or not, maid, wife, or widow, I must paint her. Give me the chance of making her acquaintance." "I will do what I can," said the Duchess, gently tilting forward her square person on to its flat white satin feet, and looking with calculating approval at her daughter. Surely Anne had never looked so lovely as at this obviously propitious moment. "Take a turn with me, young man," continued the Duchess, "and I will see what I can do. And Anne," she said with a backward glance at her daughter, "try and persuade Mr Vanbrunt to come to us in September." "I will do my best," said Anne, and she sat down on the bench. Stephen, who had risen when she joined them, looked at her with shy, angry admiration. It was a new departure for Anne so openly to abet her mother, and it wounded him. "Won't you sit down again?" said Anne, meeting his eyes firmly. "I wish to speak to you." He sat down awkwardly. He was always awkward in her presence. Perhaps it was only a moment, but it seemed to him an hour while she kept silence. The same voice sang across the starlit dark: "Some souls have quickened, eye to eye, And heart to heart, and hand in hand; The swift fire leaps, and instantly They understand." Neither heard it. Nearer than the song, close between them some mighty enfolding presence seemed to have withdrawn them into itself. There is a moment when Love leaves the two hearts in which He dwells, and stands between them revealed. So far it has been man and woman and Love--three persons met painfully together, who cannot walk together, not being agreed. But the hour comes when in awe the man and woman perceive, what was always so from the beginning, that they twain are but one being, one foolish creature who, in a great blindness, thought it was two, mistook itself for two.