Barnabas looked in at Miss Mason's studio before he left for Paris.
He found that lady sitting in her chair knitting. Pippa was curled up on the hearthrug, the red silk tightly swathing her slim body. A pair of shoes and stockings of Sally's, many sizes too big for her, covered her feet. She was watching Miss Mason with the eyes of an adoring puppy.
She scrambled to her feet as she saw Barnabas.
"Ah!" she cried, a note of great pleasure in her voice. "It is ze so sunny Monsieur. I wis you good morning."
Barnabas came over and stood on the hearthrug.
"I knew you'd look in," said Miss Mason. "I waited for you before going out to buy garments."
"Going away?" asked Pippa, looking at him with troubled eyes. She had had experience of people who went away and did not return.
"Only for a few days, and mainly on business which concerns you, little one," he replied.
"Come back ver' quick," she said. And then suddenly: "What is your name?"
He laughed. "You must call me Barnabas," he said.
She nodded her head. "Monsieur Barnabas," she said slowly. Then she turned to Miss Mason "What sall I call you?" she asked.
A sudden little tender thought sprang into Miss Mason's mind. She put it aside.
"You can call me," she said rather gruffly, "Aunt Olive."
Again the child nodded her head. "Aunt Oleeve and Monsieur Barnabas, c'est bon." She looked an odd little elfin figure as she stood there watching them.
"I must be off," said Barnabas. "I've no time to lose."
"Bon voyage," she cried, waving her hand. And then suddenly she saw the marble faun in the next garden.
"Ah!" she cried. "Quel beau petit garçon!" She darted down one path and up another.
The last thing Barnabas saw, as he looked back before leaving the courtyard, was a poppy-coloured figure standing in the wintry sunshine beside a white marble faun. The child had her arms familiarly round the faun's neck.
He painted that picture later when the days were warmer. It was a picture that was to travel far away from England, and it was to keep alive in the heart of a woman the memory of a secret--a secret of three weeks of glorious happiness and a strange regret--a secret known only to herself and to three other living people.
And so Barnabas departed to Paris in the attempt to find some clue regarding the scrap of humanity which the Fates had led to Miss Mason's studio. It was not that Miss Mason cared in the smallest degree what her parentage was. She was just a lonely little soul needing love, and so Miss Mason had taken her into her arms and into her big heart. Dan had once said of Miss Mason, and only shortly after making her acquaintance: