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‘Ah, the lady and gentleman have gone, sir? I didn’t hear them.’

‘Yes; they went by the garden.’

But she had stopped, staring at the picture on the easel. ‘Gracious, how you ‘ave served it, sir!’

Lyon imitated the Colonel. ‘Yes, I cut it up–in a fit of disgust.’

‘Mercy, after all your trouble! Because they weren’t pleased, sir?’

‘Yes; they weren’t pleased.’

‘Well, they must be very grand! Blessed if I would!’

‘Have it chopped up; it will do to light fires,’ Lyon said.

He returned to the country by the 3.30 and a few days later passed over to France. During the two months that he was absent from England he expected something–he could hardly have said what; a manifestation of some sort on the Colonel’s part. Wouldn’t he write, wouldn’t he explain, wouldn’t he take for granted Lyon had discovered the way he had, as the cook said, served him and deem it only decent to take pity in some fashion or other on his mystification? Would he plead guilty or would he repudiate suspicion? The latter course would be difficult and make a considerable draft upon his genius, in view of the certain testimony of Lyon’s housekeeper, who had admitted the visitors and would establish the connection between their presence and the violence wrought. Would the Colonel proffer some apology or some amends, or would any word from him be only a further expression of that destructive petulance which our friend had seen his wife so suddenly and so potently communicate to him? He would have either to declare that he had not touched the picture or to admit that he had, and in either case he would have to tell a fine story. Lyon was impatient for the story and, as no letter came, disappointed that it was not produced. His impatience however was much greater in respect to Mrs. Capadose’s version, if version there was to be; for certainly that would be the real test, would show how far she would go for her husband, on the one side, or for him, Oliver Lyon, on the other. He could scarcely wait to see what line she would take; whether she would simply adopt the Colonel’s, whatever it might be. He wanted to draw her out without waiting, to get an idea in advance. He wrote to her, to this end, from Venice, in the tone of their established friendship, asking for news, narrating his wanderings, hoping they should soon meet in town and not saying a word about the picture. Day followed day, after the time, and he received no answer; upon which he reflected that she couldn’t trust herself to write–was still too much under the influence of the emotion produced by his ‘betrayal.’ Her husband had espoused that emotion and she had espoused the action he had taken in consequence of it, and it was a complete rupture and everything was at an end. Lyon considered this prospect rather ruefully, at the same time that he thought it deplorable that such charming people should have put themselves so grossly in the wrong. He was at last cheered, though little further enlightened, by the arrival of a letter, brief but breathing good-humour and hinting neither at a grievance nor at a bad conscience. The most interesting part of it to Lyon was the postscript, which consisted of these words: ‘I have a confession to make to you. We were in town for a couple of days, the 1st of September, and I took the occasion to defy your authority–it was very bad of me but I couldn’t help it. I made Clement take me to your studio–I wanted so dreadfully to see what you had done with him, your wishes to the contrary notwithstanding. We made your servants let us in and I took a good look at the picture. It is really wonderful!’ ‘Wonderful’ was non-committal, but at least with this letter there was no rupture.