"There is indeed. But Samuel Palmer is the man for me. You will say that he goes oddly enough with my jade, but whenever I travel abroad 'The Bellman' and 'The Ruined Tower' go with me. And then Lepère—what a glorious artist! and Legros's woolly trees and our old friend Callot—yes, we have an enthusiasm in common there." 

 For the first time Harkness addressed the girl directly: 

 "Do you also care about etchings, Mrs. Crispin?" 

 She flushed as she answered him: "I am afraid that I know nothing about them. Our things at home were not very valuable, I am afraid—except to us," she added. 

 She spoke so softly that Harkness scarcely caught her words. "Ah, but Hesther will learn," Crispin said. "She has a fine taste already. It needs only some more experience. You are learning already, are you not, Hesther?" 

 "Yes," she answered almost in a whisper, then looked up directly at Harkness. He could not mistake her glance. It was an appeal absolutely for help. He could see that she was at the end of her control. Her hand was trembling against the cloth. She had been drinking some of her Burgundy, and he guessed that this was a desperate measure. He divined that she was urging herself to some act from which, during all these weeks, she had been shuddering. 

 His own heart was beating furiously. The food, the wine, the lights, Crispin's strange and beautiful voice were accompaniments to some act that he saw now hanging in front of him, or rather waiting, as a carriage waits, into which now of his own free-will he is about to step to be whirled to some terrific destination. 

 He tried to put purpose into his glance back to her as though he would say "Let me be of some use to you. I am here for that. You can trust me." 

 He felt that she knew that she could. She might, such was her case, trust any one at this crisis, but she had been watching him, he felt sure, throughout the meal, listening to his voice, studying his movements, wondering, perhaps, whether he too were in this conspiracy against her. 

 He had the sudden conviction that on an instant she had resolved that she could trust him, and had he had time to do as was usual with him, to step back and regard himself, he would have been amazed at his own happiness. 

 They had come to the dessert. Crispin, as though he had no purpose in life but to make every 

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