Bob limped uneasily toward the door.
"Life wouldn't be all slip-and-go-down for her, of course; but that's what I should have to make up to her."
"Oh, you'd make it up to her."
With his hand on the knob, Collingham turned in mild indignation.
"Say, Hubert, what do you think I'm made of? A girl I'm crazy about—"
"Oh, I only wondered how you were going to do it."
"Well, wonder away." A steely glint came into the deep-set, small gray eyes as he added, "That's something I don't have to explain to you beforehand, now do I?"
Left alone, the painter went on painting. As it always does, the house of Art opened its door to the troubles of the artist. Wray neither turned his head as his friend went out nor muttered a farewell. He merely laid on his strokes with an emotional vigor which hardened the surface of the plaster cast into marble. Neither did he turn his head nor utter a greeting when he became aware that Jennie, in her sport suit of tobacco color set off with collar and cuffs of ruby red, was moving toward him among the studio properties. It was easier to work his desire to look at her into this swift, sure wielding of the brush.
In the spirit rather than with the eyes he knew that she had paused within ten or twelve feet of him, that her kind, soft, bantering glance was resting on him as he worked, and that a kind, soft, bantering smile was flickering about her lips. With a deft force, he found the colors and gave this expression to the mouth and eyes of the kneeling girl. It was the work of a second—the merest twist of the fingers.
"I just wanted to say," Jennie explained, after waiting for him to see her, "that I'm sorry to have been so horrid just now, and I'd like to know when I'm to come again."