"What do women usually do when they break with one lover? Get another,
I suppose!"
The words were so hard and coarse to come from a man like Grant Herman that she involuntarily looked up quickly at him, and perhaps he noticed the action.
It was evident that some deep pain had provoked the expression, yet had found no relief in the rough words. The sculptor turned toward his companion as if to speak. Then slowly his eyes fell, and he said firmly, if a little stiffly:
"I believe I do her injustice. If she ever loved a man she was one who would love him always."
He left the little room without more words, his firm, even tread sounding down the uncarpeted stairs until the door of his own studio was heard to close after him. Mrs. Greyson stood before her clay wondering, and then, sinking into a chair, sat so long absorbed in thought that the short daylight faded about her and she was forced to give up further work that day. Replacing the wet cloth with which her bas-relief had been covered, she prepared to return home. As she passed the door of Herman's studio the sculptor opened it.
"I do not know," he said, extending his hand, "what made me so rude this afternoon. I am a bear of a fellow, but I had meant to treat you well."
He had fully recovered his composure, but his evident desire to efface the impression he had made naturally rendered it more lasting in Helen's mind.
VI.
A BOND OF AIR.
Troilus and Cressida; i.—3.
Had Helen been present at the scene which took place in Herman's studio earlier in the afternoon, she would perhaps have wondered less at his disturbance.