Sometimes, with Conrad Lagrange, he went for an evening hour to the little house next door. Sometimes Sibyl and Myra Willard would drop in at the studio, in the afternoon. The girl never, now, came alone. But every day, as the artist worked, the music of her violin came to him, out of the orange grove, with its message from the hills. And the painter at his easel, reading aright the message, worked and waited; knowing surely that when she was ready she would come.
Letters from Mrs. Taine were frequent. Aaron King, reading them--nearly always under the quizzing eyes of Conrad Lagrange, whose custom it was to bring the daily mail--carefully tore them into little pieces and dropped them into the waste basket, without comment.
Once, the novelist asked with mock gravity, "Have you no thought for the day of judgment, young man? Do you not know that your sins will surely find you out?"
The artist laughed. "It is so written in the law, I believe."
The other continued solemnly, "Your recklessness is only hastening the end. If you don't answer those letters you will be forced, shortly, to meet the consequences face to face."
"I suppose so," returned the painter, indifferently. "But I have my answer ready, you know."
"You mean that portrait?"
"Yes."
The novelist laughed grimly. "I think it will do the trick. But, believe me, there will be consequences!"
The artist was in his studio, at work upon the big picture, when Mrs. Taine called, the day of her return to Fairlands.