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“She was certainly angry.” He smiled reminiscently–he had a charming smile. “She had every right to be.”

“Look here,” she said impulsively, “what is to prevent you from lunching with me?”

“Your plans for the day–this car–and, for the matter of that, my clothes.”

“I have no appointments, and no fixed plans. I was going to amuse myself just anyhow. I shall like this far better. Oh, can’t you arrange it for me?”

“I should like it, too, and I can arrange it all very easily if you don’t mind waiting half an hour.”

“Of course I’ll wait–wait here, if you like.”

“You would find the National Gallery more interesting, and I can take you there in a few minutes.”

“Yes, that’s better. Thanks awfully. This is splendid.”

At the National Gallery she looked at certain pictures with appreciative intelligence. Then she sat down and half-closed her eyes, and saw a picture from the gallery of her memory.

It was the big classroom at Salston Hill School. At one end of the room Myra Larose took the elementary class in drawing. At the other end, much older girls took the lesson in advanced drawing from a master who was, as the prospectus stated, an exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His name was Hilary Davenant, and in the bills he was charged extra. The older girls were ten in number, and were provided with easels, charcoal, and stumps. They formed the circumference of a circle of which the centre was a life-size cast with a blackboard adjacent.

Myra watched as she saw Davenant going from one drawing-board to another, and noted the waning of patience and the growth of irritation. He went to the blackboard and addressed the entire class on the anatomy of the hand, illustrating his remarks by rapid drawings on the blackboard. They were admirable drawings in their way–swift, right, certain, slick. And suddenly he flung the chalk to the floor and spake with his tongue. He also used gesture–a foreign and reprehensible practice.

“You poor, silly idiots! Not one of you will ever do it, except perhaps Miss Stenson. And if you did, it wouldn’t be the real thing.” He checked himself, and went on in a nice, suave schoolmaster’s voice. “I was joking, of course. As I said, this cast presents considerable difficulties to some of you. But you must face your difficulties and overcome them. You must not let yourselves be discouraged.” And so on.

Dora Stenson, aged sixteen, blushed and put her hand over her eyes. The other pupils smiled in a weak, wan way. They had been told that it was a joke, and they believed everything they were told, and did their best. At the other end of the room Myra Larose developed a good deal of interest in Hilary Davenant.

An incident which occurred two days later formed another picture in the memory-gallery. Myra, with other assistants, had been summoned with every circumstance of solemnity to the principal’s private study.

“I have to inform you, ladies,” said Mrs Dewlop, “that owing to circumstances which have come to my knowledge, I have been compelled to dismiss Mr H. Davenant at a moment’s notice.” She readjusted her pince-nez, and her refined face squirmed. “Mr Davenant is not a man: he is a satyr. I have sufficiently indicated the nature of his offence, which he admitted; and I do not care to dwell upon the subject further. This has been a great shock to me. One can only hope in time to live it down. That,” she added tragically, “is all.”

It had happened six months before, and at the time had filled Myra with curiosity and also with a touch of horror. Was it wise of her to make appointments with a man who had been so described? Had not her feeling of compassion for an old colleague–one, moreover, whom she had found sympathetic–carried her too far? This was not at all the kind of thing she had come out to do. But–well, she had done it. And if the satyr added punctuality to his other vices, he would be waiting outside for her.