CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

HE LOVED HER.

For the next week all went well. Pat's improvement, though slow, was so
sure that a definite date was named on which he should be allowed to
take his first few steps. The doctor grimaced to Pixie as he gave this
promise, as if to insinuate that the experiment would not be pleasant,
but Pat was prepared--in theory at least--for anything and everything,
if thereby he might regain his freedom.

Stephen Glynn paid daily visits to the flat, and, in addition, escorted
Pixie to various "sights" of the great city, in which, to tell the
honest truth, she showed but little interest. Music was a passion with
her, but of pictures she had no knowledge, and little appreciation. The
antiques in the National Gallery left her cold and bored, though she was
full of interest in what seemed to her companion the most uninteresting
men and women who were employed in copying the canvases.

When with the frankness of criticism which he had learned from herself
he rallied her on this inconsistency, Pixie's answer was
characteristic--

"One is dead, and the other's alive. The most uninteresting live person
means more to me than a world of pictures. That girl in the grey dress
had tears in her eyes. ... Did you see? She looks so poor. Perhaps
she wants to sell her copy, and no one will buy! There was a man
talking to the fat woman next to her as we passed through before. He
was writing something in his pocket-book. I believe he was buying the
picture, and the poor grey girl felt so sad.--If Esmeralda were here,
I'd make her buy her copy, too."

"It's a very _bad_ copy!" Stephen pronounced. Then he looked down at
the girl, and the transforming smile lit up his face. "All the same--
would I do instead of `Esmeralda'? I'll buy it at once, if you wish
it!"

The grey eyes brightened, beamed, then clouded with uncertainty.

"Really? Ought you? Are you sure? It may cost--"

"That's my affair! Leave that to me. Would you like me to buy it?"

"I would!" came back at once in the deepest tone of the eloquent Irish
voice, and at that Stephen strode forward, his limp hardly observable on
the wide, smooth floor, and came to a halt by the grey girl's side.

Then followed what was to one spectator at least, a delightful scene.
The surprise on the grey girl's face, the incredulity, the illimitable
content, as the tall stranger made known his request, took out his
pocket-book and handed her a