He found that it gave him peculiar satisfaction to watch her fingers moving the brush. She was doing her own work and his at the same moment, and the suggestion of comradeship delighted him. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to go through a course of practical gardening. It all helps. Gives one the real grip on a subject.” “I should like it.” “I could arrange it for you with Lavender. It has struck me, too, that if you care to keep to this sort of work——” She looked up at him with eyes that asked, “Why not?” “You may want to do bigger things.” “But if the present work fills one’s life?” “I could find you plenty of chances for self-expression. Every year I have more people coming to me wanting plans for gardens, wild gardens, rose gardens, formal gardens. I could start a new profession in design alone. I am pretty sure you could paint people fine, prophetic pictures, and then turn your pictures into the reality.” “Could I?” She flushed, and he noticed it, and the soft red tinge that spread to her throat. “Of course you could, with your colour sense and your vision. You only want the technical knowledge.” “I am trying to get that.” “Do you know, it would interest me immensely, as an artist, to see what you would create.” “You seem to believe——” “I believe you would have very fine visions which it would be delightful for me to plant into life.” She turned and looked at him with something in her eyes that he had never seen before. “I believe I could do it, if you believe I can do it.” He had a sudden desire to stretch out his hand and to touch her hair, even as he touched Lynette’s hair, with a certain playful tenderness. Meanwhile Eve’s friendship with Lynette became a thing of unforeseen responsibilities. Lynette would come running out into the gardens directly her lessons were over, search for Eve, and seat herself at her feet with all the devotedness of childhood that sets up idols. Sometimes Lynette brought a story-book or her paint-box, but these were mere superfluities. It was the companionship that mattered. It appeared that Lynette was getting behind Miss Vance and her Scripture lessons, and she began to ask Eve a child’s questions—questions that she found it impossible to answer. Miss Vance, who was a solid and orthodox young woman, had no difficulty at all in providing Lynette with a proper explanation of everything. But Lynette had inherited her father’s intense and sensitive curiosity, and she was beginning to walk behind Miss Vance’s machine-made figures of finality and to discover phenomena that Miss Vance’s dogmas did not explain. “Who made the Bible, Miss Eve?” “A number of wise and good men, dear.” “Miss Vance says God made it.” “Well, He made everything, so I suppose Miss Vance is right.” “Has Miss Vance ever seen God?” “I don’t think so.” “But she seems to know all about Him, just as though she’d met Him at a party. Have you seen Him?” “No.” “Has anyone?” “No one whom I know.”