“What’s happened?” he cried in alarm.
“Nothing in particular.”
“Then I suppose you are going to turn me out of my workroom?”
“No, no, Billy. I am giving up painting altogether.”
Billy’s eyes dilated in horror, as on the night when his mother had dragged him out of bed to trudge the frozen fields.
“Are you mad?” he gasped.
Something of his awe sent a shiver through his brother.
“Perhaps I am,” said Matthew.
He fell silent.
Billy regarded him furtively. The minutes dragged on. Matthew looked at his watch—getting on for seven. Eleanor Wyndwood would have been dressing for him—he saw her matchless loveliness. Another few minutes, and his kisses would have been on her lips—those lips that had lain on his in what was already an enchanted, hazy dream rather than a waking memory.