Her smile and her cheerful note won his surrender. "I promise," he said slowly and solemnly, yet with distinct decision. "All that you have urged on me shall be sacred, shall be the principle of my life."
"Thank you, darling," she said simply. "I believe you, and I trust you absolutely."
They gripped hands, looking each other full in the face. The neighbouring church clock sounded its preliminary change, then struck two sonorous notes. It recalled them to the sense of the night and the silent world without. "Come," he said at last. "I will escort you back."
They went down, and out into the street again. "The clouds and the rain have vanished. It is a beautiful night again," she said. "Even that helps to soften the moment."
He strolled along by her side; they spoke now of matter-of-fact points. If the picture were accepted by the Salon he was to send it eventually to her father's country-house in the North. She hoped, too, he would not entirely forget her father, but that he and his wife would call and see him at Grosvenor Place--they could count on finding him there most years during the height of the London season. And, by the way, she was curious to know how the picture would fare when it got to Paris. Was the Salon so considerate to foreigners that it took the trouble to open packing-cases and take care of them? Wyndham gravely explained that pictures were usually consigned to the good offices of a French frame-maker who unpacked and delivered them to the Salon, afterwards collecting them and sending them back to England when the show was over. Some of these people had a large foreign clientèle, and put only a moderate value on their services. Thus chatting in this trivial fashion, they were fortunate to meet a hansom, though they had abandoned the hope of one at that hour, and were prepared to stroll all the way.
"Let us say goodbye here," she insisted. "It is simpler, and perhaps easier. We part just as two friends who have met casually."
"Goodbye, then," he said huskily. "I wish you many happy days and dreams in your wanderings in the sun-lands."
"And I wish you the power to be as great in your life as I am sure you will be in your work." She held his hand with a gentle pressure. "You will be loyal to her," was her last wistful whisper. Then she gave him a parting smile, full of sweetness and affection, and he heard the driver crack his whip, and the horse started off briskly.