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“May I look at them?” Dick asked, moving over to Alice.

“Certainly; but they’re very bad, I’m afraid; and since you artists scorn photography as so inartistic, you know I suppose you will be a severe critic.”

“Not when this is the subject,” said Dick, in a low voice, picking up a print; “how did you manage to take yourself?”

He was sitting beside her at the little table, with the lamp between them and the Colonel; he instinctively lowered his voice, and a grain of the feeling he had so far successfully repressed escaped into his tone.

“Someone took off the cap for me.”

“Oh. Who?”

“Who? Oh, I get anybody to take the cap off when I am so vain as to take myself anybody who is handy.”

“Mr. Miles, for instance?” It was a stray question, suggested by no particular train of thought, and spoken carelessly; there was no trace of jealousy in the tone it was too early for that; but Alice looked up, quick to suspect, and answered shortly:

“Yes, if you like.”

Dick was genuinely interested, and noticed in her tone nothing amiss. Several of the photographs turned out to be of Alice, and they charmed him.