“Don’t look at this,” she added.  “It’s too difficult—­I can’t get it right—­”

What his glance discovered on the block did not strengthen Will’s confidence in Rosamund’s claim to be a serious artist.  He had always taken for granted that her work was amateurish, and that she had little chance of living by it.  On the whole, he felt glad to be confirmed in this view; Rosamund as an incompetent was more interesting to him than if she had given proof of great ability.

“I mustn’t be too ambitious,” she was saying.  “The river suggests dangerous comparisons.  I want to find little corners of the town such as no one ever thought of painting—­”

“Unless it was Norbert Franks,” said Will genially, leaning on his stick with both hands, and looking over her head.

“Yes, I had almost forgotten,” she answered with a thoughtful smile.  “In those days he did some very good things.”

“.Some remarkably good things.  Of course you know the story of how he and I first met?”

“Oh, yes.  Early morning—­a quiet little street—­I remember.  Where was that?”

“Over yonder.”  Will nodded southward.  “I hope he’ll take that up again some day.”

“Oh, but let me do it first,” exclaimed Rosamund, laughing.  “You mustn’t rob me of my chance, Mr. Warburton?  Norbert Franks is successful and rich, or going to be; I am a poor struggler.  Of course, in painting London, it’s atmosphere one has to try for above all.  Our sky gives value, now and then, to forms which in themselves are utterly uninteresting.”

“Exactly what Franks used to say to me.  There was a thing I wanted him to try—­but then came the revolution.  It was the long London street, after a hot, fine day, just when the lamps have been lit.  Have you noticed how golden the lights are?  I remember standing for a long time at the end of Harley Street, enjoying that effect.  Franks was going to try it—­but then came the revolution.”

“For which—­you mean, Mr. Warburton—­I was to blame.”

Rosamund spoke in a very low voice and a very sweet, her head bent.

“Why, yes,” replied Will, in the tone of corresponding masculinity, “though I shouldn’t myself have used that word.  You, no doubt, were the cause of what happened, and so, in a sense, to blame for it.  But I know it couldn’t be helped.”

“Indeed, it couldn’t,” declared Rosamund, raising her eyes a little, and looking across the river.

She had not in the least the air of a coquette.  Impossible to associate any such trivial idea with Rosamund’s habitual seriousness of bearing, and with the stamp of her features, which added some subtle charm to regularity and refinement.  By temper critical, and especially disposed to mistrustful scrutiny by the present circumstances, Warburton was yet unable to resist the softening influence of this quintessential womanhood.  In a certain degree, he had submitted to it during that holiday among the Alps, then, on the whole, he inclined to regard Rosamund impatiently and with slighting tolerance.  Now that he desired to mark her good qualities, and so justify himself in the endeavour to renew her conquest of Norbert Franks, he exposed himself to whatever peril might lie in her singular friendliness.  True, no sense of danger occurred to him, and for that very reason his state was the more precarious.