‘Yes, Mark,’ she said in an odd, contained voice, ‘I’ll do anything I can for your sake. But in my heart—’ she suddenly looked up at him with her clear honest eyes, ‘I can’t forgive her—_ever_!’ ‘_You?_’ His surprise brought the blood to her cheeks. ‘But when it happened you were so—understanding. It was you who took the edge off my bitterness.’ ‘Because then—I didn’t understand,’ Sheila explained with difficulty. ‘I thought she had really lost you through her own blindness; and—I was sorry for her. But afterwards, one couldn’t help suspecting it was all ... that perhaps she was simply ... putting on the screw.’ ‘She admitted as much,’ he said, looking away across the rose garden. ‘Mark! How _could_ she?’ Her low tone vibrated like a smitten harp-string. ‘That’s the mystery to a masculine brain. It hurt—considerably. But it seems women do these things.’ Sheila checked a natural impulse to repudiate the sweeping assertion. She saw him deliberately erecting a screen for Bel, at the expense of others; but she had already been candid enough, and she would not permit herself to insinuate disparagement. Her enigmatical silence urged Mark to add: ‘Bel’s had her share of unhappiness, anyhow. She didn’t enjoy those three days much more than I did and she’s lost more than a week down here. So just be good to her, you deceptive little bit of adamant—and I’ll bless you from my heart.’ ‘That’s bribery!’ Sheila said laughing, and straightening her shoulders. ‘I don’t take payment for my services. But it’s time to go and dress for dinner!’ As they strolled back to the house she caught herself reflecting quite philosophically on the impunity with which the Bels of this world may steal horses, while their less privileged sisters dare not cast a glance over the hedge. But in spite of her excuse about dressing for dinner, she seemed in no such hurry after all. A sudden longing came over her to see the studio, to sit alone for a few minutes in that shrine of blessed memories: and, having seen Mark safely vanish into his bedroom, she made bold to venture in. Sinking into Lady Forsyth’s armchair, she let the crowding memories sweep through her brain, while her eyes ranged from picture to picture, from statue to statue, as it were learning them by heart, because in future the right of entry she so prized would belong to another. For her, Mark and his art were one and indivisible; and, by an unerring instinct, she dreaded the effect of Bel’s demoralising influence on both. Dearly she loved the virile figure of Triumph; more dearly still, the Viking. Him, she saw and felt as Mark had hoped that Bel might see and feel him. She had been at Wynchcombe Friars during those wonderful days when he came to life under Mark’s hands; and in her private heart she saw him as the symbol of his creator’s unquenchable spirit. In all these children of his hand and brain, she found the quintessence of the man, and it was her instinct to seek the essence of things.