all these professors, these artistic pigs—seem to know rather a queer set, advanced people, and all that sort of cuckoo, always talkin' about the poor, and societies, and new religions, and that kind of thing.”
Though he had since been to see them several times, the Dallisons had never robbed him of the virtuous feeling of that good action—they had never let him know that he had brought home, not, as he imagined, a lunatic, but merely a philosopher.
It had been somewhat of a quiet shock to him to find Mr. Stone close to the doorway when he entered Bianca's studio that afternoon; for though he had seen him since the encounter in Kensington Gardens, and knew that he was writing a book, he still felt that he was not quite the sort of old man that one ought to meet about. He had at once begun to tell him of the hanging of the Shoreditch murderer, as recorded in the evening papers. Mr. Stone's reception of that news had still further confirmed his original views. When all the guests were gone—with the exception of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Dallison and Miss Dallison, “that awfully pretty girl,” and the young man “who was always hangin' about her”—he had approached his hostess for some quiet talk. She stood listening to him, very well bred, with just that habitual spice of mockery in her smile, which to Mr. Purcey's eyes made her “a very strikin'-lookin' woman, but rather—” There he would stop, for it required a greater psychologist than he to describe a secret disharmony which a little marred her beauty. Due to some too violent cross of blood, to an environment too unsuited, to what not—it was branded on her. Those who knew Bianca Dallison better than Mr. Purcey were but too well aware of this fugitive, proud spirit permeating one whose beauty would otherwise have passed unquestioned.
She was a little taller than Cecilia, her figure rather fuller and more graceful, her hair darker, her eyes, too, darker and more deeply set, her cheek-bones higher, her colouring richer. That spirit of the age, Disharmony, must have presided when a child so vivid and dark-coloured was christened Bianca.
Mr. Purcey, however, was not a man who allowed the finest shades of feeling to interfere with his enjoyments. She was a “strikin'-lookin' woman,” and there was, thanks to Harpignies, a link between them.
“Your father and I, Mrs. Dallison, can't quite understand each other,” he began. “Our views of life don't seem to hit it off exactly.”
“Really,” murmured Bianca; “I should have thought that you'd have got on so well.”
“He's a little bit too—er—scriptural for me, perhaps,” said Mr. Purcey, with some delicacy.
“Did we never tell you,” Bianca answered softly, “that my father was a rather well—known man of science before his illness?”
“Ah!” replied Mr. Purcey, a little puzzled; “that, of course. D'you know, of all your pictures, Mrs. Dallison, I think that one you call 'The Shadow' is the most rippin'. There's a something about it that gets hold of you. That was the original, wasn't it, at your Christmas party—attractive girl—it's an awf'ly good likeness.”
Bianca's face had changed, but Mr. Purcey was not a man to notice a little thing like that.
“If ever you want to part with it,” he said, “I hope you'll give me a chance. I mean it'd be a pleasure to me to have it. I think it'll be worth a lot of money some day.”
Bianca did not answer, and Mr. Purcey, feeling suddenly a little awkward, said: “I've got my car waiting. I must be off—really.” Shaking hands with all of them, he went away.
When the door had closed behind his back, a universal sigh went up. It was followed by a silence, which Hilary broke.
“We'll smoke, Stevie, if Cis doesn't mind.”
Stephen Dallison placed a cigarette between his moustacheless lips, always rather screwed up, and ready to nip with a smile anything that might make him feel ridiculous.
“Phew!” he said. “Our friend Purcey becomes a little tedious. He seems to take the whole of Philistia about with him.”
“He's a very decent fellow,” murmured Hilary.
“A bit heavy, surely!” Stephen Dallison's face, though also long and narrow, was not much like his brother's. His eyes, though not unkind, were far more scrutinising, inquisitive, and practical; his hair darker, smoother.
Letting a puff of smoke escape, he added:
“Now, that's the sort of man to give you a good sound opinion. You should have asked him, Cis.”
Cecilia answered with a frown:
“Don't chaff, Stephen; I'm perfectly serious about Mrs. Hughs.”
“Well, I don't see what I can do for the good woman, my dear. One can't interfere in these domestic matters.”
“But it seems dreadful that we who employ her should be able to do nothing for her. Don't you think so, B.?”
“I suppose we could do something for her if we wanted to badly enough.”
Bianca's voice, which had the self-distrustful ring of modern music, suited her personality.
A glance passed between Stephen and his wife.
“That's B. all over!” it seemed to say. …
“Hound Street, where they live, is a horrid place.”
It was Thyme who spoke, and everybody looked round at her.
“How do you know that?” asked Cecilia.
“I went to see.”
“With whom?”
“Martin.”
The lips of the young man whose name she mentioned curled sarcastically.
Hilary asked gently:
“Well, my dear, what did you see?”
“Most of the doors are open—”
Bianca murmured: “That doesn't tell us much.”
“On the contrary,” said Martin suddenly, in a deep bass voice, “it tells you everything. Go on.”
“The Hughs live on the top floor at No. 1. It's the best house in the street. On the ground-floor are some people called Budgen; he's a labourer, and she's lame. They've got one son. The Hughs have let off the first-floor front-room to an old man named Creed—”
“Yes, I know,” Cecilia muttered.
“He makes about one and tenpence a day by selling papers. The back-room on that floor they let, of course, to your little model, Aunt B.”
“She is not my model now.”
There was a silence such as falls when no one knows how far the matter mentioned is safe to, touch on. Thyme proceeded with her report.
“Her room's much the best in the house; it's airy, and it looks out over someone's garden. I suppose she stays there because it's so cheap. The Hughs' rooms are—” She stopped, wrinkling her straight nose.
