Mrs. Merrick, not understanding in the least, smiled and curtseyed.
"I'm sure we're very sorry to lose you, sir, and Miss Leslie especially. I don't know what Portmaris will do without her, that I don't. We shall be quite dull now for a bit, for Mr. Temple, the crippled gentleman, has gone off to-day. You will be sure and send me your address?"
"Yes, yes," said Francis Lisle, "and—er—if we hear of anyone wanting clean and comfortable sea-side lodgings, we shall certainly remember to recommend you, Mrs. Merrick."
He went off in the broken down fly like a prince with his canvases piled round him, and oblivious of everything but them.
During the journey up to town he spoke very little, but sat in his corner looking out of the window, a smile of self-satisfaction every now and then passing over his thin, worn face.
"I shouldn't be surprised, Leslie," he said once, "if this should prove to be the last time we travel third class. I shall ask, and no doubt obtain, a fair price for my pictures, and we shall at last—at last—be rich enough to afford a little luxury. They say that everything comes to him who can wait, and I think I have waited long enough, long enough!"
Leslie's pale face flushed, and her conscience tortured her, but she could not summon up courage to tell him the truth.
They reached town late in the summer evening, and Leslie calling a cab told the man to drive to a house in Torrington square, at which they had stayed on previous visits to London.
Torrington Square is a quiet secluded spot in the great metropolis. It is central, and yet retired. Nearly every house is let in apartments, and the square is the favorite residence of the journalists and artists who pay occasional visits to London.