“I’ve only just come in, and if I stop here I shall be deafened. I shall be in the studio till dinner.”
Mr. Thomas condescended to go to sleep after a quarter of an hour or so, and May went to the drawing-room. Tom’s post-card was lying address downwards, and not thinking what she was doing she read it. It was quite natural and innocent to see to whom he was writing, but when she saw the address she felt a little more ill-used than before.
About a week after this, Maud Wrexham came to see them in Bloomsbury. May was out, and Tom was in despair because the breezy model had taken it into her head to demand a higher wage for standing, and Tom could not afford either to pay her more, or to part with her. He had engaged her till the end of the week at the higher rate, but he knew he could not continue to do so indefinitely. He was walking up and down the studio when Maud was sloppily announced by the slip-shod maid—wondering what on earth was to be done.
“May not here,” she said, “and you be-thunder-clouded! What’s the matter?”
Tom related the woes of the afternoon, and commented bitterly on the rapacity of the human race.
“I really don’t know what to do,” he said. “I can’t possibly keep her on at this rate. It’s hard enough as it is.”
Maud flushed suddenly, and seemed to have something to say.
“We are old friends,” she began at length, “and I don’t think you will be offended at what I am going to say. Will you do me a favour? Will you let me lend you some money?”
Tom stopped suddenly in his walk.
“How could I be offended?” he asked. “It is awfully kind of you. For myself I should say ‘Yes’ at once. Why not? But there is May.”