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laughed
slightly, as though he were 'surprised to find he could not explain any impulse
of his own. "It was just a picture of a most charming child, sitting on
the grass in a blue and white frock. I suppose she would be about Toni's age.
No, maybe rather more. Say fourteen."
    "Not, really?" Beverley laughed slightly
in her turn, on a note of incredulous
surprise and pleasure. "Was it the, the painting or the subject
that made you buy the picture?"
    "Both, I suppose. At least, I thought the
artist had very cleverly caught the personality of the subject. I remember everything else in the exhibition bored
me. But I thought, I'd like to know that girl. She's the kind of kid one
would like to have around."
    "So you bought it?"
    "Yes, I bought it."
    "And you still have it?"
    "Yes, of course. I don't know that it's of any
special value, in the market sense. But I wouldn't part with it for a really
fancy price. There's something very sane and lovable about my little girl in
the blue and white dress, and although .my worst enemy wouldn't call me a
fanciful chap, I regard her as a very pleasant companion in my house."
    "I'm so glad, " Beverley said, and
laughed.
    'You sound as though you really mean that."
    "Well, I do! Have you never thought that your little
girl in the blue and white dress must be quite grown up now?"
    "Yes, certainly. Why do you say that?"
    "Because, though I find it rather embarrassing
to tell you so, after all the nice things you have said, ' I was the little girl in the blue and white dress. It was the first
picture Geoffrey ever sold."
    "You don't say!" He actually drew the car
to a standstill by the roadside and turned to look at her, his eyes alight with
interest, and his whole attention so completely fixed on her that she flushed
slightly under his scrutiny.
    'Tell me what your name is."
    "Miss Farman."
    "No. Your first name, " he said, rather
peremptorily. "My little girl in the blue and white dress wouldn't answer
to the name of Miss Farman."
    "My first name is Beverley."
    "Beverley, " he repeated it
experimentally, "it's a nice name. And it suits her. You, I mean."
Again that bright, penetrating glance travelled over her. "I can see now, of
course, that you are exactly as she would have grown up."
    "Oh, thank you." She laughed, and once
more she felt herself flush. "That's very nice of you, though a trifle embarrassing."
    "It need not be. I don't think it's in the
least embarrassing. I find it most intriguing, " he said. "Like meeting
an old friend."
    She hardly knew how to take such frankness, and yet
she could not be -anything but touched and flat tered by it.
    "You know, " she said, "you are a
most surprising person. No one would suppose from your general air that you
were at all romantic or-, "
    "I am not in the least, " he assured her.
    "But you must be, " she told him.
"No' entirely practical and common-sense person would make a friend of a
picture and take such obvious pleasure in tracing up the original years
later."
    "You mean you think it's rather silly of
me." He considered that frowningly.
    "Indeed I don't! I think it's extraordinarily
nice of you. I don't remember when I've felt
more gratified. Certainly not since the picture was painted and
exhibited. And sold, " she added, with a half-wistful smile. For she
suddenly remembered with poignant clarity how jubilant Geoffrey and she had
been over that first sale.
    "Well, " he looked amused again, "that
seems to establish this as a very satisfactory meeting on both sides." '
    And then he drove on once more, while Beverley sat
there thinking what an extraordinary day of dis coveries this had been. First there had been the contact with the
Waynes, and the work which was going to follow as a consequence. Then there was
the revelation which Toni had insisted on forcing upon her. Though this, Beverley
was daring to begin to think, was greatly exaggerated and by no means to be taken
as seriously as she had at first supposed. And now there was the