Julian Wyllard came into the drawing-room while the cousins were sitting together talking, their heads bending towards each other. The family likeness between them was very strong. They looked like brother and sister; and they looked very happy.
Dora was in the garden next day when the postman brought his bag. She was no longer anxious about her letters, having received the expected tidings from Paris. She was moving slowly about among her roses, armed with a basket and a pair of garden scissors, cutting off blind buds and shabby blooms, making war upon her insect enemies—enjoying the balmy air and warm sunshine of early autumn.
Julian Wyllard came out of the glass door while she was thus occupied. She looked up at the sound of the familiar footsteps, and went across the grass to meet him.
"My dear Dora, are you inclined to go for a week's holiday with me?" he asked, in his cheeriest tones.
"I am always ready to go anywhere with you. Is it because you have not been feeling well of late that you want to leave Penmorval?" she asked, looking anxiously at him, remembering his strange irritation, that burst of jealousy, which might be after all only the indication of an overworked brain.
"I have not been feeling over well—a little worried and irritable, and more than a little weak and languid," he answered. "But it is not on that account I want to go away. You remember my losing the Raffaelle last July?"
"Perfectly."
"Well, there is a still finer Raffaelle to be sold next week in Paris, at the Hôtel Drouot. The great Rochejaquelin collection comes to the hammer. There are some of the finest Greuzes in Europe. There are Meissoniers of the highest quality, and a famous Delaroche. I may not buy any of the pictures. No doubt the prices will be enormous. But I should like to see the collection once more, before it is scattered to the four winds. Would you mind running over to Paris with me for a week, or would you rather stay at home while I go?"
"I should like very much to go. I have never been in Paris with you, except hurrying through from station to station."
"Have you not? That is strange."
"I have never even seen the house where you lived when you were making your fortune in Paris."
"That would not be much to see. A ground floor near the Madeleine. A capital point for a business man; within ten minutes' walk of the Bourse, and in that central spot where the idlers and the workers alike congregate. A most uninteresting nest, Dora; nothing historical, or picturesque, or romantic, within half a mile."
