"Oh, you young people! Nothing satisfies you! You have not been in London a year yet, and now you want to leave it!"
"Not directly. I am going to work hard all this winter, but the Blakes are going to Paris next spring, and they want me to go with them. They are going to a studio there, and I can join them. I do hope you approve. I feel," here she laughed merrily, "that you are a kind of guardian to me."
"I do not approve of Paris," said the Colonel shortly.
"Oh, please do! I must go there. It is an education, and I can afford it. I have talked over ways and means with the Blakes. All artists drift off to Paris. I shall not take up my abode there. If Miss Lorraine is not tired of me, I shall return to her. But perhaps I shall have painted a picture by that time that will bring me money and fame."
She looked somewhat wistfully at the Colonel.
Though she saw him seldom she valued his good opinion, and she felt that her Paris scheme had been a distinct shock to him.
"I saw your grandfather yesterday," Colonel Douglas said.
"Did you?" Jean responded in an indifferent tone. She was disappointed that the Colonel purposely changed the subject.
"He was full of animation over a young cousin of his, the son of a man who died in Australia. He has invited him to take up his quarters with him, and told me he intended making him his heir."
"I am so glad," Jean said cheerfully. "I shall like to think that there will be some young life in that stagnant place. He is a man, so he will be able to come and go. And now I must say goodbye, Colonel Douglas, for I promised to go to see a friend of mine—an art student who is ill."