"What a morning!" he thought, as he passed through the gate and snapped the lock after him. At different times when he had visited this enclosure with his scratch-pad, he had made mental notes of advantageous points for sketching, and he now moved straight to a chosen spot.
The gravel path winding between the patches of fresh spring green crunched under his feet and reminded him of the tar and pebble roof he had put on a barn in Montana. How different this life! How glorious! If only his mother could sit beside him while he sketched this morning.
The day was joyous as his spirit, and the park was soon alive with children and their capped and aproned nurses, truly distinguished in their right of eminent domain, while outside the hedges and railings sauntered those with no proprietary rights in Gramercy Park. A child often peeped through the fence at coveted dandelions, like a little peri at the gates of paradise.
Phil worked away, paying no attention to the more inquisitive youngsters who dared from a well-bred distance to stretch and strain for a look at what was being done in art.
He was hastily washing in a soft rose grey that was eventually to take the form of several charming old brick houses. They had dormer windows above and fascinating iron grilled balconies with long drawing-room windows and great masses of spring flowers growing in front of the basements.
Philip was working with an intensity of interest and absorption, and suddenly he threw a quantity of color and water from his brush with a quick backward motion which sent a flood over one of the youngsters who had ventured quite near. A shout of glee went up from the others of the group and he turned quickly to see what had happened, just as a girl, not capped or aproned, seized the little color-target, and wiped the moisture from the boy's face with her handkerchief.
"You, Miss Manning!" cried the artist, "and I can't spare time to rise and fall on my knees in apology."
"Ernest is the one who should apologize," said Violet, laughing, "but you know an artist out of doors is common property."
"Of course," returned Phil, washing away industriously. "Come here, little chap. I'm sorry I doused you. Come and see what I'm doing—no, not the rest of you. I can't have a heavy weight on my sword arm."
Upon this, Ernest, who had been scarlet under his companions' amusement, gave them a glance of superiority and moved to Phil's side.