Thinking of Nicky made her think of Ishmael, and she went over again in her mind what he had looked like when he had been so angry yesterday. She had seen a new Ishmael then, a more interesting one; she was vaguely aware of liking him better than before. Perhaps it might be rather fun to see if she could make him angry. Probably he would only be really angry with anyone he cared for, and of course he didn't care for her at all. Georgie pondered that point as she went. She was honest and sweet, but she was an arrant little flirt, and Val was not the first man who had kissed her. She never pretended anything to herself, but she could pretend things to other people. She was too vital to be vulgar, but she was also too vital to be quite well-bred, and often her methods were startling, as for her age and period she cared remarkably little what she said. She would try and wake Ishmael up; it would do him good. For all her plainness of actual feature, if that wonderful mouth were excepted, no one knew better than Georgie that she had _beaute de diable_, and the sheer impudent vitality of her swept nearly every man off his feet if she wished it to. "Me, m'dear?" she would protest to Judy or any friend who pointed this out to her. "Most hideous female, m'dear. Face like a pudding." Here she would puff out her cheeks and hold them distended till her soft infectious laughter made them collapse. "Everyone's kind to me, because I'm so plain they're sorry for me...." Privately she considered she knew everything in the world there was to know about men. In reality she knew very little, placing as much too much importance on sex as Judy placed too little. Arrived at the Manor, she found that Nicky had disappeared, after an annoying and rather alarming habit of his, and was not expected back, by those who knew his roving ways, till the evening. Ishmael informed her of this with rather a rueful smile. "He's always had these wild fits ever since he's been big enough to go off on his own," he told her; "and he steals something out of the larder, or if he can't do that he just trusts to his eyes and tongue when he meets some kind good lady, and he scours the countryside till late. The worst of it is I shan't be able to do anything to him when he turns up this evening, because he'll pretend he ran away because he was so afraid of me after yesterday." "Are you so terrifying?" said Georgie, peeping up at him from under her shady hat. "Not at all. I am a very easily-led person." Georgie considered this, her head on one side. Then she said briskly: "Then will you please help me take my sketching things somewhere, as I can't get on with the portrait? After all, it's a bit your fault, isn't it? You should have brought your son up better." "Of course, I'll take them anywhere you like," said Ishmael; "where shall it be?"