She went out into the yard, but not, as she had intended, to the street; and turning the corner of the house, she crossed the sunny lawn to some hydrangea bushes in blossom, where she paused and stood, apparently in contemplation of the flowers. She was trembling a little, so strong was her queer consciousness of the stranger in the library and of his dark and glowing eyes. Such sensations as hers have often been described as “unreal;” that is to say, “she seemed to be in a dream.” Her own eyes had not fully encountered the dark and glowing ones, but never had any person made so odd and instantaneous an impression upon her. What else was she to conclude but that there must have been “something psychic” about it? And how, except by telepathy, could she have so suddenly found in her mind the conviction that the distinguished-looking young man was a painter? For to her own amazement, she was sure of this. After a time she went back into the house, and again passed through the hall and by the open doors, but now her bearing was different. In a sweet, low voice she hummed a careless air from Naples, while in her arms she bore a sheaf of splendid hydrangea blossoms, thus offering, in the momentary framing of the broad doorway, a composition rich in colour and also of no mean decorative charm in contour, it may be said. “The Girl from the Garden” might have been the title she wished to suggest to a painter’s mind, but when she came into the view of her mother’s caller, consciousness of him increased all at once so overwhelmingly that she forgot herself. She had meant to pass the doorway with a cool leisureliness and entirely in profile—a Girl from the Garden with no other thought than to enliven her room with an armful of hydrangea blossoms—but she came almost to a halt midway, and, for the greater part of a second packed with drama, looked full upon the visitor. He was one of those black-and-white young men: clothes black, linen white, a black bow at the collar, thick black hair, the face of a fine pallor, and black eyes lustrously comprehending. What they must have comprehended now was at least a little of the significance of the arrested attitude beyond the doorway, and more than a little of what was meant by the dark and lustrous eyes that with such poignant inquiry met his own. For Muriel’s fairly shouted at him the startled question: “Who are _you_?”