What was she musing about, as she sat there, sweet as a rosebud, not dreaming the passion of longing which shook the strong man at her side? She was not occupied with him. Yet his gaze drew her attention, and she looked up, with a sigh of pleasure. "People who don't love beautiful things must lose a great deal of happiness." Giles thought so too, feasting his eyes on a beauty which was not of inanimate Nature. "Colin says beauty is Divine," she murmured; and the words gave him a shock. Though taken less by surprise than on the day before, he felt a flame of wrath through his frame. He thought he had known before! Now he knew that he had only conjectured. It "was" then—Colin! Colin had stolen her from him. Colin—his more than brother! A wave of resentment rushed into the affection which had bound those two since infancy. "Don't you think so?" she asked, turning towards him. The smile died out. He could not control his face, and what she saw startled her. "Are you vexed with anything I have said?" "Never!" He strove to clear the thickness from his voice. "I never could be vexed with you. It is—only—" He had difficulty in speaking, and she looked with perplexed eyes. "Only—a passing thought—a recollection. If I was vexed, it was with somebody else—not you!" Then he mastered himself. "You were saying something about beauty being Divine. Colin's idea, was it not?" "But you did not like that, so we can talk of something else," she said, with a touch of reserve which wounded him to the quick. "I should like you to explain." "Colin could explain better. You should ask him. Why—there is Gordon!" she cried. "Here we are, Gordon! Come along." Gordon marched composedly up, with failing legs and his most aggressive six-foot air. "I say, you have brought me an awful long way," he declared. "Mother says Phyllys has got to come to lunch with her to-day." "Of course I will, and if we start directly, we shall be in time." She jumped up, almost too eagerly. The sense of relief was patent, and it meant a fresh stab for Giles. He walked to the water's edge, to recover himself. Gordon surveyed his broad back, then turned to Phyllys. "I say—have a bite?" He extended benignly a red-cheeked apple, dented on one side. "No, thanks. What made you come all this way, Gordon?" "Mother wanted you. Course I came," said Gordon. CHAPTER XVII DUTY VERSUS DESIRE GILES had not meant to ask Phyllys for that walk. After the studio scene, he had felt that his duty was to wait, until he should know which way lay Colin's intentions. But when he met Phyllys on the stairs, when he read pleasure in her smile, his resolution melted like ice in sunshine, and the request slipped out. Though he realised what his action meant, he did not draw back.