I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small watercolour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question⁠—an idle question enough⁠—but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips?

“No,” she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, “it is not my doing.”

Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever anyone was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little watercolour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible.