deficiencies I dwelt on. I could only reply without gross developments:
"Oh if you're as sorry for her as that!" I too was nearly as sorry for
her as that, but it only led me to be sorrier still for other victims of
this compassion. With Dawling as with me the compassion was at first in
excess of any visible motive; so that when eventually the motive was
supplied each could to a certain extent compliment the other on the
fineness of his foresight.

After he had begun to haunt my studio Miss Saunt quite gave it up, and I
finally learned that she accused me of conspiring with him to put
pressure on her to marry him. She didn't know I would take it that way,
else she would never have brought him to see me. It was in her view a
part of the conspiracy that to show him a kindness I asked him at last to
sit to me. I dare say moreover she was disgusted to hear that I had
ended by attempting almost as many sketches of his beauty as I had
attempted of hers. What was the value of tributes to beauty by a hand
that could so abase itself? My relation to poor Dawling's want of
modelling was simple enough. I was really digging in that sandy desert
for the buried treasure of his soul.




CHAPTER VI


It befell at this period, just before Christmas, that on my having gone
under pressure of the season into a great shop to buy a toy or two, my
eyes fleeing from superfluity, lighted at a distance on the bright
concretion of Flora Saunt, an exhibitability that held its own even