“Well, there was the dock, you see, and business and all that sort of thing.  I can’t always neglect business, you know.”

Lightmark asserted emphatically that he didn’t know, while, on the other hand, Mrs. Sylvester was understood to remark, with a certain air of mystery, that she could quite understand what kept Philip in town.

“Don’t you think I might have been rather—­rather a fifth wheel?” suggested Rainham feebly, entirely ignoring Mrs. Sylvester’s remark, to which, indeed, he attached no special meaning.

“Spare our blushes, old man,” expostulated Dick.  “It would have been awfully jolly.  You would have been such a companion for Charles, you know,” he added, with a malicious glance over his shoulder.  “Oh dear! fog again.  I think I must release you now, Eve.  Tell me what you think of the portrait, now that I’ve worked in the background, Philip.  Mrs. Sylvester, now don’t you think I was right about the flowers?”

There was, in fact, a charming, almost virginal delicacy and freshness of air and tone about the picture.  The girl’s simple, white dress, with only—­the painter had so far prevailed over the milliner,—­only a suggestion of bright ribands at throat and waist; the quaint chippendale chair, the sombre Spanish leather screen, which formed the background, and the pot of copper-coloured chrysanthemums, counterparts of the little cluster which Eve wore in the bosom of her gown, on a many-cornered Turkish table at the side:  it had all the gay realism of modern Paris without losing the poetry of the old school, or attaining the hardness of the new.

Rainham looked at it attentively, closely, for a long time.  Then he said simply: 

“It’s the best thing you have done, Dick.  It will be one of the best portraits in the Academy, and you ought to get a good place on the line.”

“I’m so glad!” cried Eve rapturously, clasping her hands.  “On the line!  But,” and her voice fell, “it isn’t to go to the Academy.  Mamma has promised Sir—­Dick is going to send it to the Grosvenor.  But it’s pretty much the same, isn’t it?  Oh, now show Philip the sketch you have made for your Academy picture,” she added, pointing to a board which stood on another easel, with a protecting veil over the paper which was stretched upon it.  “You know he can tell us if it’s like the real thing.”

“If it’s the Riviera, or—­or dry docks,” added Rainham modestly.

But Lightmark stepped forward hastily, after a moment’s hesitation, and put his hand on the drawing just as Eve was preparing with due ceremony to unveil it.

“Excuse me, I don’t want to show it to Rainham yet.  I—­I want to astonish him, you know.”

He laughed rather uneasily, and Eve gave way, with some surprise in her eyes, and a puzzled cloud on her pretty brow, and went and seated herself on the settee at her mother’s side.

“He’s afraid of my critical eye, Mrs. Sylvester,” said Rainham gravely.  “That’s what it is.  Well, if you don’t show it me now, you won’t have another opportunity yet awhile.”