May was a little mollified.
“Yes, Tom’s been working very hard—too hard, I think. He doesn’t take enough exercise.”
“Oh, there’ll be plenty of time for that when she’s finished,” said Tom; “and it’s exercise enough chipping away at that stone.”
“I saw Mr. Holders this afternoon,” said May. “Mr. Holders bought one of Tom’s things last winter,” she explained to Maud, “and he wants to know if you have anything else for him. I said there was one unfinished statuette, but I couldn’t get you to finish it. Besides, you’d given it me.”
Tom grinned and stirred his tea.
“No, dear, I should just think you couldn’t get me to finish it,” he said. “May means that little abortion on the chimney-piece in the sitting-room, you know. There’s a horror for you!”
Maud Wrexham soon went away, and the two were left together. May’s thoughts went back to the trouble she had seen on Tom’s face when she entered, and presently she said—
“Tom, what was the matter when I came in?”
“We had been talking about what I told you,” he said. “I can’t possibly afford to give more than I do for models, and I am rather in a hole.”
“Poor old boy!” said she. “But what can we do? You must have a model, you say, and you have to pay her.”