"You still want to do it, despite the war? Won't it take some time?" he said. "No longer than if there were no war. Mother will not let you go away immediately. Besides, didn't I hear you say that you could not get a sailing for some time? At least, we can make a start." "I'm quite ready," he agreed. He was ready, even if the portrait took much longer than expected. "And I keen to begin, painter fashion, when I have a subject that I enjoy. Then the likeness to the ancestor--you see, the Sanfords very much want one of you to hang opposite the ancestor's. I promised it to them and I thought I'd make a copy of the ancestor to send to your father. Would you like it? Would he? We cousins when we are seventeenth through such a grand old ancestor must stand together." Phil tried to find words of acceptance adequate to the offer. "The favour is really on my side; it's an opportunity," she pursued. He was conscious that she was looking intently at his profile, and when he glanced toward her she lowered her long lashes and raised her hand to brush back a strand of hair which was really not much out of place. Then she looked back at him thoughtfully, as one who had been engrossed in a problem. "I'm not sure but a profile one would be better," she said. "I thought we had settled that point," he parried. "It would make you different from the ancestor." "That's an advantage, but----" "Well----" "Can't you make it full face? The ancestor's not quite that." They had stopped and were looking directly at each other in the enjoyment of this verbal fencing. "As you are now?" she suggested. "Exactly!" "I think it would be excellent," she admitted, after a pause of further thoughtful observation, squinting her eyes ever so little, then opening them wide as she passed final judgment. "Good! It's so much more companionable." "Yes, we can talk as I paint." "Which is bound to give the subject life!" he concluded, as they started on. "And the painter, too," she added. As they drew near the house he saw Helen standing in the doorway. She seemed not to see him, but bent down to pull some burrs off her gown and then ran her hand with a sweeping motion across her forehead. She had watched the scene between Henriette and Philip on the walk and to her it had the familiarity of an habitual process of the life of her family. It was not the first time that she had had to greet a guest who accepted her only because she was Henriette's sister. Her self-consciousness was not minimised by her disarray after her walk, though its depths were in the recollection of her tempers at Truckleford and her absurd action about the portrait and of having yielded to tears in her room, all as part of some strange influence which she could not understand. Without calling to him she advanced, with something of the manner of a culprit who expects reproof. "We are glad to see you at Mervaux," she said, holding out her hand.