“Mrs. Gummidge,” he said.
“Oh, what do you mean?” she asked.
“You’ve been thinking of the old one,” said Evelyn. “Philip.”
“Quite true, I was,” she said. “He is such a dear.”
“So glad you like him,” muttered Evelyn, again frowning and biting his brushes. “Lord love us, what a blue world it is this morning! There, I can’t paint any more just now.”
“That’s rather sudden, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I always stop like that,” said Evelyn. “I go on painting and painting, and then suddenly somebody turns a tap off in my head, and I’ve finished. I can’t see any more, and I couldn’t paint if I did. I suppose the day will come when the tap will be turned permanently off. Shortly afterwards I shall be seen to jump off Westminster Bridge. I only hope nobody will succeed in rescuing me.”
“I will try to remember if I happen to be there,” said she.
Evelyn put his sketch to dry in the shadow of the terrace wall.
“The law is so ridiculous,” he said. “They punish you if you don’t succeed in committing suicide when you try to, and say you are temporarily insane if you do. Whereas the bungler is probably far more deranged than the man who does the job properly.”