"Shall we join the ladies?"
"I say, you've had a dose of Delorme."
For he had found her still with the painter, who as soon as Tatham
appeared had subsided languidly into allowing Lady Barbara to talk to
him.
"Oh! but so amusing!" cried Lydia, her face twinkling. "We've picked all
the Academy to pieces and danced on their bones."
"Has he asked you to sit to him?"
Lydia hesitated, and in the soft light he saw her flush.
"He said something. Of course it would be a great, great honour!"
"An honour to him," said Tatham hotly.
"I'm afraid you don't know how to respect great men!" she said laughing,
as they drew out of the shadow of the Italian garden with its clipped
yews and cypresses, and reached a broad terrace whence the undulations of
the park stretched westward and upward into the purple fissures and
clefts of the mountains. Trees, fells, grass were steeped in a wan, gold
light, a mingling of sunset and moonrise. The sky was clear; the
gradations of colour on the hills ethereally distinct. From a clump of
trees came a soft hooting of owls; and close behind them a tall hedge of
roses red and white made a bower for Lydia's light form, and filled the
night with perfume.
"What do great men matter?" said Tatham incoherently as they paused;
"what does anything matter--but--_Lydia!_"
It was a cry of pain. A hand groped for hers. Lydia startled, looked up
to see the face of Tatham looking down upon her through the warm
dusk--transfigured.
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