The boy’s quick instinct told him that an attempt was being made to deceive him. He wondered why. Who was the little girl who had nestled against him? Finding that he was a stranger she had become shy. He looked at her. She was younger than himself. Long curls, the color of Vashti’s, fell upon her tiny shoulders. She was exquisitely slight Her frock was a pale blue to match her eyes, and very short above her knees. She looked like a spring flower, made to nod and nod in the sunshine and to last only for a little while. More spirit than body had gone to her making; a puff of wind would send her dancing out of sight. “Desire, come here, darling. Say thank you to the boy for saving you from the lion.” Kneeling, Vashti took the little girl’s reluctant hand and held it out to Teddy. Desire snatched it away and began to cry. A knocking at the door caused a diversion; it was the cabman demanding his fare and asking how much longer they expected him to wait Hal paid; Teddy noticed that Vashti let him pay as if it were his right. He was mystified; the house and what happened in it were so different from anything he had expected. Vashti had been so emphatic that no one but herself and himself were to know about it, and here were Hal and Pauline and the little girl who knew about it already. Hal’s expression, when he had thrown the rug from his shoulders, had been that of a man who was found out. But his eyes, when they had met Vashti’s, had become daring with gladness. Teddy was aware that he had been brought unintentionally to the edge of a big secret which he could not understand. The cabman had been gone for a long time. Teddy had been left to amuse himself in the room where the canary hopped in its cage and the plants leant forward to catch the sunlight. It was a long room, running from the front of the house to the back and was divided by an archway. In the back part a fire burned and a couch was drawn up before the fire. He hadn’t the heart to go to it, but stood gazing out between the plants into the street in the exact spot where Vashti had left him. Every now and then the canary twittered, as if trying to draw him into conversation; sometimes it dropped seeds on his head. He didn’t know quite what it was he feared or why. On an easel in the archway he espied _The Garden Enclosed_, which his father had painted. The little god was still peering in through the gate. Teddy had hoped that by now he might have entered the garden. Like the little god he waited, with ears attentive to catch any sound in the quiet He seemed to have been waiting for ages. A door in the back half of the room opened. Hal and Vashti came in, walking near together. Vashti looked round Hal’s shoulder and called to Teddy, “Not much longer now. I’ll be with you in a moment.” Then they both seemed to forget him.