Chapter Six.
What Pacey Saw in the Clouds.
Three weeks soon pass in busy London, but to Armstrong Dale the twenty-one days which ensued after the scene at Portland Place were like months of misery.
Stern in his resolve to avoid all further entanglement, and to keep faith to her whom in his heart of hearts he loved, he shut himself up in his studio, and made a desperate attack upon his great mythological picture, a broad high canvas, at which Keren-Happuch stared open-mouthed, when she went into the studio every morning “to do Mr Dale up”—a feat which consisted in brushing the fluff about from one corner to another, and resulted in a good deal of sniffing, and the lodging of more dust upon casts, ledges, furniture, and above all, upon Keren-Happuch’s by no means classical features, where it adhered, consequent upon a certain labour-and-exercise-produced moisture which exuded from the maiden’s skin.
“I can’t help looking smudgy,” she used to say; and directly after, “Comin’, mum,” for her name was shouted in an acid voice by Mrs Dunster, the elderly lady who let the studio and rooms in Fitzroy Square to any artist who would take them for a time.
But the poor little slavey was Keren-Happuch to that lady alone. To Armstrong she was always Miranda, on account of her friend, the dirty-white cat of the kitchen; to his artist friends such names as seemed good to them, and suited to their bizarre thoughts.
To Armstrong one morning came Keren-Happuch, as he was painting out his previous day’s work upon his great picture, and she stood staring with her mouth open.
“Oh, Mr Dale, sir, what a shame! What would Miss Montmorency say?”