He took his hat, and left the studio to Mr Verneede.
Verneede was one of those bizarre figures, with whose construction Nature seems to have had very little to do. What he had been was a mystery, where he lived was to most people a mystery, and what he lived on was a mystery to every one. Some tiny income he must have had, but no man knew from whence it came. Useless and picturesque as an old fashion-plate, he wandered through life with an umbrella under his arm, ready to stand at any street corner in the chill east wind or the broiling sun and listen to any tale told by any man, and give useless advice or instruction on any subject.
His criticisms were the despair and delight of artists, according to their liability to be soothed or maddened by the absolutely inane.
For the rest, he was quite harmless, his chiefest vice, after a taste for beer, a passion for borrowing umbrellas and never returning them.
Mr Verneede seated, immersed in his own weird thoughts and contemplations, came suddenly to consciousness again with a start.
A dark-haired girl of that lost type which recalls La Cruche Cassée and the Love-in-April conceptions of Fragonard, exquisitely pretty and exquisitely dressed, was in the studio. He had not heard her knock, or perceived her enter. Had she descended through the ceiling or risen from the floor? was it a real girl, or was it June materialised in a gown of corn-flower blue, and with wild field poppies in her breast?
"God bless my soul!" said Mr Verneede.
"You were asleep, I think," said the girl. "I'm so sorry to have disturbed you, but I want to see Mr Leavesley; this is his studio, I think."
"Oh, certainly, yes, this is his studio, I believe. Pray take a seat. Ah, yes—dear me, what a strange coincidence——"
"And these are his pictures?" said the girl, looking round her in an interested way. She had placed a tiny parcel and an impossible parasol on the table, and was drawing off a suede glove leisurely, as she glanced around her.