brought him back last
night from Yorkshire! Just in time, don't you know. Felicity was as
pleased as Punch."

"My darling boy, I _know_ you're sweet and clever, but you talk as if
you had any amount of power and influence, and all that!"

"Well, I got Bertie Wilton a decoration!" He laughed. "The Order of the
Boot! Now, Sylvia, pull yourself together and I'll see it through. Don't
say a word to Woodville, mind that!"

"I adore you for this, Savile." During the interview the girl of twenty
seemed to have grown much younger and more inexperienced, and the boy
four years her junior, to have become a man.

"Tell me," she asked anxiously, "then am I to pretend to consent to his
going to Athens? Why, if he did _go_, well, it would kill me--to begin
with!"

"And what to go on with? Rot! It wouldn't kill you. It might spoil your
looks, or give you a different sort of looks, that mightn't suit you so
well. Awfully jolly it would be, too, having an anxious sister looking
out for the post. Thanks! What a life for me! How soon has he to give an
answer?"

"Oh, in a month," she answered.

"Well, let things slide; let them remain in ... what's that word?"

"I don't know. In doubt? In ... Chancery?"

"Chancery! Really, Sylvia! I know! In abeyance, that's the word," said
Savile. He seemed to take special pleasure in it. "Yes, _abeyance_," he
repeated, with a smile. "Well, good-bye! I'm going out." He looked to
see that his trousers were turned up and the last button of his
waistcoat left unfastened in the correct Eton fashion, and said, "Do
look all right in our box to-night, Sylvia. You can if you like, you
know."

"I _promise_, Savile! I'd do _anything_ for you! I shall never forget."

"You know, looking decent can't do any harm anyway anyhow, to anybody.
Never be seen out of uniform." He stopped at the door to say very
kindly, "Buck up, dear, and don't go confiding in people--I know what
girls are. I suppose now," remarked Savile sarcastically, "that you want
a powder-puff, and a cup of tea. I'll tell Price--about the tea, I
mean."

CHAPTER XII

AT THE STUDIO

Woodville let himself in with the key, and sat down, in deep
despondency, in front of his easel. On it was a second copy of a copy
that some one had found him doing at the National Gallery of the great
Leonardo. It was not good, and it made him sick to look at it. The
studio was a battered little barn in the depths of Chelsea, with the
usual dull sc