Ethelberta thanked him, and took the book.  ’I use it to look into between the parts, in case my memory should fail me,’ she explained.  ’I remember that I did lay it down, now you remind me.’

Ladywell had apparently more to say, and moved by her side towards the carriage; but she declined the arm he offered, and said not another word till he went on, haltingly: 

’Your triumph to-night was very great, and it was as much a triumph to me as to you; I cannot express my feeling—­I cannot say half that I would.  If I might only—­’

‘Thank you much,’ said Ethelberta, with dignity.  ’Thank you for bringing my book, but I must go home now.  I know that you will see that it is not necessary for us to be talking here.’

‘Yes—­you are quite right,’ said the repressed young painter, struck by her seriousness.  ’Blame me; I ought to have known better.  But perhaps a man—­well, I will say it—­a lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.  Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms.  I saw that, and hoped that I might speak without real harm.’

‘You calculated how to be uncalculating, and are natural by art!’ she said, with the slightest accent of sarcasm.  ’But pray do not attend me further—­it is not at all necessary or desirable.  My maid is in the carriage.’  She bowed, turned, and entered the vehicle, seating herself beside Picotee.

‘It was harsh!’ said Ladywell to himself, as he looked after the retreating carriage.  ’I was a fool; but it was harsh.  Yet what man on earth likes a woman to show too great a readiness at first?  She is right:  she would be nothing without repulse!’ And he moved away in an opposite direction.

‘What man was that?’ said Picotee, as they drove along.

’O—­a mere Mr. Ladywell:  a painter of good family, to whom I have been sitting for what he calls an Idealization.  He is a dreadful simpleton.’

‘Why did you choose him?’

’I did not:  he chose me.  But his silliness of behaviour is a hopeful sign for the picture.  I have seldom known a man cunning with his brush who was not simple with his tongue; or, indeed, any skill in particular that was not allied to general stupidity.’

‘Your own skill is not like that, is it, Berta?’

‘In men—­in men.  I don’t mean in women.  How childish you are!’

The slight depression at finding that Christopher was not present, which had followed Ethelberta’s public triumph that evening, was covered over, if not removed, by Ladywell’s declaration, and she reached home serene in spirit.  That she had not the slightest notion of accepting the impulsive painter made little difference; a lover’s arguments being apt to affect a lady’s mood as much by measure as by weight.  A useless declaration like a rare china teacup with a hole in it, has its ornamental value in enlarging a collection.

No sooner had they entered the house than Mr. Julian’s card was discovered; and Joey informed them that he had come particularly to speak with Ethelberta, quite forgetting that it was her evening for tale-telling.