La science l\'avait gardé na?f.
Alphonse Daudet.

The last Sunday in March was Show Sunday; and Frank, who was of a festive disposition, had invited all the people he knew in London to inspect his pictures and Mr. Oakley\'s before they were sent in to the Royal Academy.

Mr. Oakley was a middle-aged Bohemian, who had made a small success in his youth and never got beyond it. It had been enough, however, to launch him into the artistic world, and it was probably only owing to the countenance of his brothers of[Pg 126] the brush that he was able to sell his pictures at all. Oakley was an accepted fact, if nothing more; the critics treated him with respect if without enthusiasm; the exhibition committees hung him, though not indeed on the line, and the public bought his pictures, which had the advantage of being moderate in price and signed with a name that everybody knew.

Of course this indifferent child of the earth had a wife and family; and he had been only too glad to share his studio expenses with young Jermyn, whose father, the Cornish clergyman, had been a friend of his own youth.

"I wonder," said Gertrude, as the Lorimers dressed for Frank\'s party, "if there will be a lot of gorgeous people this afternoon?" And she looked ruefully at the patch on her boot, with a humiliating reminiscence of Darrell\'s watchful eye.

"I don\'t expect so," answered Phyllis, whose pretty feet were appropriately shod. "You know what dowdy people one meets at the Oakleys. Oh, of course they know others, but they don\'t turn up, somehow."

"Then there will be Mr. Jermyn\'s people,"[Pg 127] said Lucy, inspecting her gloves with a frown.

"A lot of pretty, well-dressed girls, no doubt," answered Phyllis; "I expect that well-beloved youth has a wife in every port, or at least a young woman in every suburb."

"Apropos," said Gertrude, "I wonder if the Devonshires will be there. We never seem to see Conny in these days."

"Isn\'t it rather a strain on friendship," answered Phyllis, shrewdly, "when two sets of our friends become acquainted, and seem to prefer one another to us, the old and tried and trusty friend of each?"

"What horrid things you say sometimes, Phyllis," objected Lucy, as the three sisters trooped downstairs.

Fanny was not with them; she was spending the day with some relations of her mother\'s.

A curious, dreamlike sensation stole over Gertrude at finding herself once again in a roomful of people; and as an old war-horse is said to become excited at the sound of battle, so she felt the social instincts rise strongly within her as the familiar, forgotten pageant of nods and becks and wreathed smiles burst anew upon her.

[Pg 128]

Frank shot across the room, like an arrow from the bow, as the Lorimers entered.

"How late you are," he said; "I was beginning to have a horrible fear that you were not coming at all."

"How pretty it all is," said Lucy, sweetly. "Those great brass jars with the daffodils are charming; and what an overwhelming number of people."

Conny came up to them, splendid as ever, but with a restless light in her eyes, an unnatural flush on her cheek.

"How do you do, girls?" she said, abruptly. "You look seedy, Gerty." Then, as Frank moved off to fetch them some tea: "I do so hate afternoon affairs, don\'t you?"

"How pretty Frank looks," whispered Phyllis to Lucy; "I like to see him flying in and out among the people, as though his life depended on it, don\'t you? And the daffodil in his coat just suits his complexion."

"Phyllis, don\'t be so silly!"

Lucy refrained from smiling, but her eyes followed, with some amusement, the picturesque and active figure of her host, as he went about his duties with his usual air of earnestness and candour.

[Pg 129]

"Come and look at the pictures, Lucy. That\'s what you\'re here for, you know," remarked Fred, who had joined their group, and was looking the very embodiment of Philistine comeliness. "I haven\'t seen you for an age," he added, as they made their way to one of the easels.

"That is your own fault, isn\'t it?" said Lucy, lightly.

"Conny has got it into her head that you don\'t care to see us."

"How can Conny be so silly?"

"Don\'t tell her I told you. She would be in no end of a wax," he added, as Phyllis and Constance pressed by them in the crush.

Gertrude was still standing near the doorway, sipping her tea, and looking about her with a rather wistful interest. She had caught here and there glimpses of familiar faces, faces from her own old world—that world which, taken en masse, she had so fervently disliked; but no one had taken any notice of the young woman by the doorway, with her pale face and suit of rusty black.

"I feel like a ghost," she said to Frank, as she handed him her empty cup.

"You do look horribly white," he [Pg 130]answered, with genuine concern; "I wish you were looking as well as your sisters—Miss Phyllis for instance."

He glanced across as he spoke with undisguised admiration at the slim young figure, and blooming face of the girl, who stood smiling down with amiable indifference at one of his own canvasses.

Phyllis Lorimer belonged to that rare order of women who are absolutely independent of their clothes.

By the side of her old black gown and well-worn hat, Constance Devonshire\'s elaborate spring costume looked vulgar and obtrusive; and Constance herself, in the light of her friend\'s more delicate beauty, seemed bourgeoise and overblown.

The effect of this contrast was not lost on two men who, at this point of the proceedings, strolled into the room, and whom the Oakleys came forward with some empressement to receive.

"I have brought you Lord Watergate," Gertrude heard one of them say, in a voice which she recognised at once, the sound of which filled her with a vague sense of discomfort.

"Darrell, by all that\'s wonderful!"[Pg 131] said Frank, sotto voce, his eyes shining with enthusiasm; "there, with the light Vandyke beard—but you know him already."

"Hasn\'t he a Show Sunday of his own?" replied Gertrude, in a voice that implied that the wish was father to the thought.

"He has a gallery all to himself in Bond Street this season. I wonder if he will sing this afternoon."

"Mr. Darrell is a person of many accomplishments it seems."

"Oh, rather!" and Frank went off to offer a pleased and modest welcome to the illustrious guest.

Sidney Darrell, having succeeded in escaping from the Oakleys and their tea-table, made his way across the room, stopping here and there to exchange greetings with the people that he knew, and moving with that ostentatious air of lack of purpose which is so often assumed in society to mask a set and deliberate plan.

"How do you do, Miss Lorimer?" He stopped in front of Phyllis and held out his hand.

Phyllis\'s flower-face brightened at this recognition from the great man.

[Pg 132]

"Now, don\'t you think this is the most ridiculous institution on the face of the earth?" said Darrell, as he took his place beside her, for Conny had moved off discreetly at his approach.

"Which institution? Tea, pictures, people?"

"Their incongruous combination under the name of Show Sunday."

"Oh, I think it\'s fun. But then I have never seen the sort of thing before."

"You are greatly to be envied, Miss Lorimer."

"How lovely Phyllis is looking," cried Conny, who had joined Gertrude near the doorway; "she grows prettier every day."

"Do you think so?" answered Gertrude. "She looks to me more delicate than ever, with that flush on her cheek, and that shining in her eyes."

"Nonsense, Gerty; you are quite ridiculous about Phyllis. She appears to be amusing Mr. Darrell, at any rate. She says just the sort of things Mr. Lorimer used to. She is more like him than any of you."

"Yes." Gertrude winced; then, looking up, saw Mr. Oakley and a tall man standing before her.

[Pg 133]

"Lord Watergate, Miss Lorimer."

The grey eyes looked straight into hers, and a deep voice said—

"We have met before. But I scarcely ventured to regard myself as introduced to you."

Lord Watergate smiled as he spoke, and, with a sense o............