But Dankmere merely fled to the backyard and remained there all the afternoon smoking his head off; and it was several days before Jessie had an opportunity to find herself alone in his vicinity and to ask him with almost perfect self-possession where he had found the photograph. "I stole it," said Dankmere, turning bright red to his ear-tips. "All she could think of to say was: 'Why?' "It resembles my wife. So do you." "Really," she said coldly. * * * * * Several days later she learned by the skilfully careless questioning of Quarren that the Countess of Dankmere had not existed on earth for the last ten years. This news extenuated the Earl's guilt in her eyes to a degree which permitted a slight emotion resembling pity to pervade her. And one day she said to him, casually pleasant--"Would you care for that post-card, Lord Dankmere? If it resembles your wife I would be very glad to return it to you." Dankmere, painfully red again, thanked her so nicely that the slight, instinctive distrust and aversion which, in the beginning, she had entertained for his lordship, suddenly disappeared so entirely that it surprised her when she had leisure to think it over afterward. So she gave him the post-card, and next day she found a rose in a glass of water on her desk; and that ended the incident for them both except that Dankmere was shyer of her than ever and she was beginning to realise that his aloof and expressionless deportment was due to shyness--which seemed to be inexplicable because otherwise timidity was scarcely the word to characterise his lively little lordship. Once, looking out of the rear windows, through the lace curtains she saw the Earl of Dankmere in the backyard, gravely turning handsprings on the grass while still smoking his pipe. Once, entering the gallery unexpectedly, she discovered the Earl standing at the piano, playing a rattling breakdown while his nimble little feet performed the same with miraculous agility and professional precision. She withdrew to the front door, hastily, and waited until the piano ceased from rumbling and the Oxfords were at rest, then returned with heightened colour and a stifled desire to laugh which she disguised under an absent-minded nod of greeting. Meanwhile one or two pictures had been sold to dealers--not important ones--but the sales were significant enough to justify the leasing of the basement. And here Quarren installed himself from morning to noon as apprentice to an old Englishman who, before the failure of his eyesight, had amassed a little fortune as surgeon, physician, and trained nurse to old and decrepit pictures. Not entirely unequipped in the beginning, Quarren now learned more about his trade--the guarded secrets of mediums and solvents, the composition of ancient and modern canvases, how old and modern colours were ground and prepared, how mixed, how applied.