I was not the only one who listened to the message of spring. Mother Graham grew restless and used all of her meagre strength in drives to the parks and walks to a nearby square where the crocuses were just beginning to wave their brave greeting to the city.
The warmer days affected Dicky adversely. He seemed a bit distrait, displayed a trifle of his earlier irritability, and complained a great deal about the warmth of the apartment.
"I tell you I can't stand this any longer," he said one particularly warm evening in April, as he sank into a chair, flinging his collar in one direction and his necktie in another. "I'd rather be in the city in August than in these first warm days of spring. What do you say to moving into the country for the summer? Our month is up here the first, anyway, and I am perfectly willing to lose any part of the month's rent if we only can get away."
"But, Dicky," I protested, "unless we board, which I don't think any of us would like to do, how are we going to find a house, to say nothing of getting settled in so short a time?"
To my surprise, Dicky hesitated a moment before answering. Then, flushing, he uttered the words which brought my little castle of contentment grumbling about me and warned me that my marital problems were not yet all solved.
"Why, you see, there won't be any bother about a house. Miss Draper has found a perfectly bully place not far from her sister's home."
"Miss Draper has found a house for us!"
I echoed Dicky's words in blank astonishment. His bit of news was so unexpected, amazement was the only feeling that came to me for a moment or two.
"Well, what's the reason for the awful astonishment?" demanded Dicky, truculently. "You look as if a bomb had exploded in your vicinity."
He expressed my feeling exactly. I knew that Miss Draper had become a fixture in his studio, acting as his secretary as well as his model, and pursuing her art studies under his direction. But his references to her were always so casual and indifferent that for months I had not thought of her at all. And now I found that Dicky had progressed to such a degree of intimacy with her that he not only wished to move to the village which she called home, but had allowed her to select the house in which we were to live.