CHAPTER FOUR
STORROW was still engaged in his silent struggle to fit himself into a less compromising environ- ment when Mrs. Kirkner and her daughter re- turned to their city home. So smoothly did the intricate cogs mesh and revolve in that quiet-chambered abode that the return had been effected before he was even aware of it. The knowledge of that advent, in fact, came to him from Medberry, the aged butler, in the adroit intimation that he might possibly be expected to " dress " for dinner that night. He was still in his studio, however, with his well-smudged modelling-gown on, when Charlotte Kirk- ner tapped on the door and entered.
Of " Cousin Charlotte," as by a stretch of truth he had once called her, he still nursed a vague and boyish memory of a very pale child with very big eyes, unspeakably spindly legs, and a passion for a broken doll known as Alice-Emily." It came as a shock to him, accordingly, to find himself confronted by a quiet-mannered and ex- tremely self-possessed young woman of at least twenty years. Yet her smile was almost a timid one as she stood studying him out of a pair of cogitative grey eyes that were unmistakably friendly.
" Owen, how brown you are ! " she said as they shook hands. And a tinge of colour showed along her pale cheeks as she spoke.
" I'd never have known you," admitted Owen, ob- viously constrained, prepared to dislike her at the first intimation of hostility. But she impressed him as being too neutral-tinted, too timorously passive, to awaken any
positive fires of opposition. She was shell-like, he felt,
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