anner--although she did not utter a single
word--the enchanted silence of the solitary place.

However, the intruder was too matter-of-fact to trouble about the
sequestered liveliness of this unique dwelling. She strode across the
lawns, and passing beyond the monoliths, marched like an invader up the
narrow path between the radiant flower-beds. From the tiny green door
she raised the burnished knocker and brought it down with an emphatic
bang. Shortly the door opened with a pettish tug, as though the person
behind was rather annoyed by the noise, and a very tall, well-built,
slim young man made his appearance on the threshold. He held a palette
on the thumb of one hand, and clutched a sheaf of brushes, while another
brush was in his mouth, and luckily impeded a rather rough welcome. The
look in a pair of keen blue eyes certainly seemed to resent the
intrusion, but at the sight of Miss Greeby this irritability changed to
a glance of suspicion. Lambert, from old associations, liked his visitor
very well on the whole, but that feminine intuition, which all creative
natures possess, warned him that it was wise to keep her at arm's
length. She had never plainly told her love; but she had assuredly
hinted at it more or less by eye and manner and undue hauntings of his
footsteps when in London. He could not truthfully tell himself that he
was glad of her unexpected visit. For quite half a minute they stood
staring at one another, and Miss Greeby's hard cheeks flamed to a poppy
red at the sight of the man she loved.

"Well, Hermit." she observed, when he made no remark. "As the mountain
would not come to Mahomet, the prophet has come to the mountain."

"The mountain is welcome," said Lambert diplomatically, and stood
aside, so that she might enter. Then adopting the bluff and breezy,
rough-and-ready-man-to-man attitude, which Miss Greeby liked to see in
her friends, he added: "Come in, old girl! It's a pal come to see a pal,
isn't it?"

"Rather," assented Miss Greeby, although, woman-like, she was not
entirely pleased with this unromantic welcome. "We played as brats
together, didn't we?

"Yes," she added meditatively, when following Lambert into his studio,
"I think we are as chummy as a man and woman well can be."

"True enough. You were always a good sort, Clara. How well you are
looking--more of a man than ever."

"Oh, stop that!" said Miss Greeby roughly.

"Why?" Lambert raised his eyebrows. "As a girl you always