“Well, of course,” said Andover with a shrug, “if he is a decent fellow, as Tatham says, he won’t stay long.  Do you imagine Melrose is going to change his spots?—­not he!”

“Somebody must really go and talk to this chap,” said Barton gloomily.  “I believe Melrose will lose us the next election up here.  You really can’t expect people to vote for Tories, if Tories are that sort.”

The talk flowed on.  But Tatham had ceased to listen.  For some little time there had been no voices or steps in the garden outside.  They had melted into the wood beyond.  But now they had returned.  He perceived a white figure against a distant background of clipped yew.

Rising joyously he threw down his cigarette.

“Shall we join the ladies?”

“I say, you’ve had a dose of Delorme.”

For he had found her still with the painter, who as soon as Tatham appeared had subsided languidly into allowing Lady Barbara to talk to him.

“Oh! but so amusing!” cried Lydia, her face twinkling.  “We’ve picked all the Academy to pieces and danced on their bones.”

“Has he asked you to sit to him?”

Lydia hesitated, and in the soft light he saw her flush.

“He said something.  Of course it would be a great, great honour!”

“An honour to him,” said Tatham hotly.

“I’m afraid you don’t know how to respect great men!” she said laughing, as they drew out of the shadow of the Italian garden with its clipped yews and cypresses, and reached a broad terrace whence the undulations of the park stretched westward and upward into the purple fissures and clefts of the mountains.  Trees, fells, grass were steeped in a wan, gold light, a mingling of sunset and moonrise.  The sky was clear; the gradations of colour on the hills ethereally distinct.  From a clump of trees came a soft hooting of owls; and close behind them a tall hedge of roses red and white made a bower for Lydia’s light form, and filled the night with perfume.

“What do great men matter?” said Tatham incoherently as they paused; “what does anything matter—­but—­Lydia!”

It was a cry of pain.  A hand groped for hers.  Lydia startled, looked up to see the face of Tatham looking down upon her through the warm dusk—­transfigured.

“You’ll let me speak, won’t you?  I daresay it’s much too soon—­I daresay you can’t think of it—­yet.  But I love you.  I love you so dearly!  I can’t keep it to myself.  I have—­ever since I first saw you.  You won’t be angry with me for speaking?  You won’t think I took you by surprise?  I don’t want to hurry you—­I only want you to know—­”

Emotion choked him.  Lydia, after a murmur he couldn’t catch, hid her face in her hands.

He waited; and already there crept through him the dull sense of disaster.  The impulse to speak had been irresistible, and now—­he wished he had not spoken.

At last she looked up.