Gerard was puzzled. That any firm should pay a designer eight hundred a year, and want her to travel about for them seemed strange, he thought. He had had a vague idea that a designer must go through a thorough course of training before his talents were of much practical value; and to learn that a girl who had had no experience of such work could, within a few months, make such a large income was a surprise to him. “She must have to work very hard,” he said. “Yes, but she finds time to go about and enjoy herself too. That is the wonderful part of it, and nobody could do it but Rachel,” babbled on the pretty childlike seventeen-year-old sister proudly. “Old Lady Jennings, whom she stays with, says she never sees her with a pencil in her hand when she’s at home. But she has a little studio somewhere off Regent Street--only she won’t tell us where, for fear we should go and disturb her at her work,” added the girl ingenuously, “and when she has anything important to do, she just shuts herself up there, and works away for hours. I do wish I were clever like that!” she added wistfully. “I’ve no doubt you’re clever too, in some other way,” almost stammered Gerard, puzzled and confused by the strange account the simple-hearted schoolgirl had given him. He was conscious, even as he talked to the pretty child, that her sister was watching them with anxiety. Was Rachel anxious that Lilian should not be so frank? Old Lady Jennings, the distinguished-looking chaperon, seemed to be anxious to have him introduced to her. But Rachel prevented this, and contrived, without any appearance of incivility, to dismiss Gerard within a few moments of the conversation he had had with her sister. He was disturbed, ruffled, rendered uneasy, and vaguely suspicious of he knew not what. But the impression made upon him by Miss Davison the elder, was stronger than ever, and he felt that he could not rest until he had found out more about her, and fathomed the mystery which appeared to surround her. The more he thought about it, the more certain he felt that the younger sister must be under a misapprehension with regard to the income earned by her sister. Either it was much smaller than she supposed, and Rachel pretended that it was large, in order that the younger might not feel that she was a burden, or else Rachel had some other employment, more remunerative, to eke out her income. Was she on the stage? Though Gerard knew little about the theatrical profession except from the outside, he was vaguely sure that incomes of eight hundred a year cannot be made there except by actors and actresses who have some training or experience, or who have made such a mark for some special reason or other, that their names must be known to everybody.