"But she is Mrs. Le Geyt," continued Geoff, looking with wide-open, innocent eyes from his uncle to Janey. "Mrs. Dick Le Geyt. I know it. I knew her again directly. I saw her when they were staying at Fontainebleau on their honeymoon. I've never forgotten her. I wanted to draw her. I thought of asking him if I might, but he was rather odd in his manner, and I didn't, and the next day he was ill, and I went away. But they were down in the visitors' book as Mr. and Mrs. Le Geyt, and I heard him call her Annette, and----" Mr. Stirling suddenly caught sight of Janey's face. It was crimson, startled, but something in it baffled him. It had become rigid, and he saw with amazement that it was not with horror or indignation, but as if one in torture, terrified at the vision, saw a horrible way of escape over a dead body. "You are making a mistake, Geoff," he said sternly. "You never get hold of the right end of any stick. You don't in the least realize what you are saying, or that Mr. Le Geyt is Miss Manvers' brother." "I only wish," said Janey, with dignity and with truth, "that my poor brother were married to Miss Georges. There is no one I should have liked better as a sister-in-law. But you are mistaken, Mr. Lestrange, in thinking such a thing. To the best of my belief he is not married." "They were at Fontainebleau together as husband and wife," said Geoff. "They really were. And she had a wedding ring on. She has not got it on now. I looked, and--and----" But Mr. Stirling swept him down. "That's enough. You must forgive him, Miss Manvers. He has mistaken his vocation. He ought not to be a painter, but a novelist. Fiction is evidently his forte. Good evening. Good-bye, Harry. Thank you for opening the gate for us. We will take the short cut across the fields to Noyes. Good-bye. Good-bye." And Mr. Stirling, holding Geoff by the elbow, walked him off rapidly down the lane. "Uncle Reggie," said the boy, "I think I won't go to Japan to-morrow after all. I think I'll stop on here. I can get a room in the village, and make a picture of the fountain and the lichen and the willow weed, with Mrs. Le Geyt picking flowers. She's just what I want. I suppose there isn't any real chance of her being so kind as to stand for me, is there?--she looks so very kind,--in the nude, I mean. It's quite warm. But if she wouldn't consent to that, that gown she had on, that mixed colour, cobalt with crimson lake in it----" "Called lilac for short," interpolated Mr. Stirling. "It would be glorious against the yews, and knocking up against the grey stone and that yellow lichen in the reflection. The whole thing would be--stupendous. I see it." Geoff wrenched his elbow away from his uncle's grip, and stopped short in the path, looking at Mr. Stirling, through him. "I see it," he said, and his pink, silly face became pale, dignified, transfigured. Mr. Stirling's heart smote him.