eve carfax was painting an easel picture of the walled garden when lynette arrived with a camp-stool, a drawing book, a box of paints, and a little green watering-pot full of water.

“i want to make pictures. you’ll teach me, won’t you, miss eve?”

“i’ll try to.”

“i’ve got a lovely box of paints. what a nice music stand you’ve got.”

“some people call it an easel.”

“i ought to have one, oughtn’t i? i’ll ask mr. beeby to make one. mr. beeby’s the carpenter. he’s such a funny man, with a round-the-corner eye.”

eve took the apprenticeship as seriously as it was offered, and started lynette on a group of blue delphiniums, white lilies, and scarlet poppies. lynette began with fine audacity, and red, white and blue splodges sprang up all over the sheet. but they refused to take on any suggestion of detail, and the more lynette strove with them, the smudgier they became.

“oh, miss eve!”

“how are you getting on?”

“i’m not getting on.”

“the colours seem to have got on your fingers.”

“they’re all sticky. i oughtn’t to lick them, ought i?”

“no. try a rag.”

“i’ll go and wash in the gold-fish basin. the gold-fish won’t mind.”

she ran off into the japanese garden, reappeared, borrowed one of eve’s clean rags, and stood watching the expert’s brush laying on colours.

“you do do it beautifully.”

“well, you see, i have done it for years.”

lynette meditated.

“i shall be awful old, then, before i can paint daddy a picture. can you draw fairies and animals?”

“supposing i try?”

“yes, do. draw some in my book.”

the easel picture was covered up and abandoned for the time being. the two stools were placed side by side, and the two heads, the auburn and the black, came very close together.

“i’ll draw mr. puck.”

“yes, mr. puck.”

“mr. puck is all round—round head, round eyes, round mouth.”

“what a funny little round tummy you have given him!”

“you see, he’s rather greedy. now we’ll draw mr. bruin.”

“daddy made such funny rhymes about mr. bruin. give him a top-hat. isn’t that sweet? but what’s he doing—sucking his fingers?”

“he has been stealing honey, and he’s licking his paws.”

“now—now draw something out of the bible.”

“the bible?”

“yes. draw god making eve.”

“that would take rather a long time.”

“well, draw the serpent devil, and god in the garden.”

“i’ll draw the serpent.”

“what a lovely snake devil! now, if i’d been god, i’d have got a big stick and hit the snake devil on the head. wouldn’t it have saved lots and lots of trouble?”

“it would.”

“then why didn’t god do it?”

eve was rescued by canterton from justifying such theological incongruities. he found them with their heads together, auburn and black bent over lynette’s drawing-book. he stood for a moment or two watching them, and listening to their intimate prattle. this girl who loved the colour and the mystery of life as he loved them could be as a child with lynette.

“you seem very busy.”

lynette jumped up.

“daddy, come and look! isn’t miss eve clever?”

for some reason eve blushed, and did not turn to look at canterton.

“here’s mr. puck, and old bruin, and titania, and orson, and the devil serpent. miss eve is just splendid at devils.”

“is she? that’s rather a reflection.”

he stood behind eve and looked down over her shoulder.

“you have given the serpent a woman’s head.”

she turned her chin but not her eyes.

“yes.”

“symbolism?”

“i may have been thinking of something you said the other day.”

a full-throated and good-humoured voice was heard calling, “lynette—lynette!”

“oh, there’s miss vance! it’s the music lesson. i’ll show her the serpent devil. i’ll come back, miss eve, presently.”

“yes, come back, little beech leaf.”

they were silent for a few moments after she had gone.

“i like that name—‘little beech leaf.’ just the colour—in autumn, and racing about in the wind.”

he came and stood in front of eve.

“you seem to be getting on famously, you two.”

her eyes lifted to his.

“she’s delightful! no self-consciousness, no showing off, and such vitality. and that hair and those elf’s eyes of hers thrill one.”

“and she likes you too, not a little.”

eve coloured.

“well, if she does, it’s like a bit of real life flying in through the narrow window of little worries, and calling one out to play.”

“little worries?”

“i don’t want to talk about them—the importunities of the larder, and the holes in the house-linen, and the weekly bills. i am always trying to teach myself to laugh. and it is very good for one to be among flowers.”

he glanced at the easel.

“you have covered up the picture. may i see it?”

“it is not quite finished. in twenty minutes——”

“may i come back in twenty minutes?”

“oh, yes!”

“i like my own flowers to be just at their best when friends are to see them.”

“yes, you understand.”

canterton left her and spent half an hour walking the winding paths of the japanese garden, crossing miniature waterways, and gazing into little pools. there were dwarf trees, dwarf hedges, and a little wooden temple half smothered with roses in which sat a solemn, black marble buddha. this buddha had caused a mystery and a scandal in the neighbourhood, for it had been whispered that canterton was a buddhist, and that he had been found on his knees in this little wooden temple. in the pools, crimson, white, and yellow lilies basked. the rocks were splashed with colour. clumps of japanese iris spread out their flat tops of purple and white and rose. fish swam in the pools with a vague glimmer of silver and gold.

at the end of half an hour canterton returned to the walled garden, and found eve sitting before the picture, her hands lying in her lap. the poise of her head reminded him of “beata beatrix,” but her face had far more colour, more passionate aliveness, and there was the sex mystery upon her mouth and in the blackness of her hair.

“ready?”

she turned to him and smiled.

“yes, you may look.”

he stood gazing at her work in silence, yet with a profound delight welling up into his eyes. she watched his face, sensitively, hardly conscious of the fact that she wanted to please him more than anyone else in the world.

“exquisite! by george, you have eyes!”

she laughed softly in a happy, exultant throat.

“i surprised myself. i think it must be lynette’s magic, and the fairies in the wilderness.”

“if you are going to paint like that, you ought to do big things.”

“oh, i don’t know! there are not many people who really care.”

“that’s true.”

he gazed again at the picture, and then his eyes suddenly sought hers.

“yes, you can see things—you can feel the colour.”

“sometimes it is so vivid that it almost hurts.”

they continued to look into each other’s eyes, questioningly, wonderingly, with something akin to self-realisation. it was as though they had discovered each other, and were re-discovering each other every time they met and talked.

lynette reappeared where the long walk ended in a little courtyard paved with red bricks, and surrounded by square-cut box hedges. she had finished her half-hour’s music lesson with miss vance, and was out again like a bird on the wing. canterton had insisted on limiting her lessons to three hours a day, though his ideas on a child’s upbringing had clashed with those of his wife. there had been a vast deal of talking on gertrude’s part, and a few laconic answers on the part of her husband. now and again, when the issue was serious, canterton quietly persisted in having his own way. he never interfered with her multifarious schemes. gertrude could fuss here, there, and everywhere, provided she did not tamper with lynette’s childhood, or thrust her activities into the serious life of the great gardens of fernhill.

“let’s go and have tea in the wilderness.”

“why not?”

“you’ll come, miss eve?”

she snuggled up to eve, and an arm went round her.

“i’m afraid i can’t, dear, to-day.”

“why can’t you?”

“i must go home and take care of my mother.”

lynette seemed to regard this as a very quaint excuse.

“how funny! fancy anyone wanting to take care of my mother. why, she’s always wanting to take care of everybody else, ’cept me! i wonder if they like it? i shouldn’t.”

“your mother is very kind to everybody, dear.”

“is she? then why don’t sarah, and ann, and edith, and johnson, like her? i know they don’t, for i’ve heard them talking. they all love you, daddy.”

canterton looked at her gravely.

“you mustn’t listen to what everybody says. and never tell tales of everybody. come along, old lady, we’ll go down to the wilderness.”

“i wish you’d come, miss eve.”

“i wish i could, but i mustn’t to-day.”

“i do like you so much, really i do.”

eve drew lynette close and kissed her with impulsive tenderness. and canterton, who saw the love in the kiss, felt that he was standing at the gateway of mystery.