The whistle had mounted all three flights now, and paused a moment before their door. Dorothy began talking unconcernedly. They heard him enter his own studio. The whistle was resumed and they could hear him moving restlessly about. A match was struck, then another; then silence, then footsteps and a knock at the door.
“Come in,” called Dorothy, and the door opened, disclosing a rather shame-faced Nels, who, however, was determined to appear as if nothing had happened.
“Looks like a party,” he said.
“It is a party,” said Ruth.
“I hope I’m not intruding—I thought Dorothy was alone.”
“We were chattering continuously enough for any one to hear us,” said Dorothy. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Thanks—I suppose that means, too, that I can come in and sit down and share your gossip, and everything,” said Nels, seating himself forthwith on the couch-bed—not a chaise longue—but an ugly bed disguised as a couch—without which no cheap studio or hall bedroom is complete.
Much is written about the “feminine touch” which makes home of the most ordinary surroundings. Ruth thought of it as she looked at Dorothy’s room. Perhaps, she decided, artistic women are an exception to this rule. Dorothy had knowledge of beautiful things, more knowledge than the average woman, but no one would have guessed it from the untidy shabbiness of her studio. Only the bright samovar and the roses, thrown into relief by the firelight, which with the same magic threw dusty corners into shadow and seemed to gild the ugly, broken-down furniture into beauty, threw a glamour over the place now and made it seem quite different from the cheerless room they had entered over an hour before. The rain was bringing a premature twilight which made the firelight doubly welcome. Nels felt the change and looked about him as if in unfamiliar surroundings.
“This is certainly cheery,” he said, taking the cup Dorothy offered him. “And roses!” He looked inquiringly at Ruth.
“No, I’m not the lucky girl; some admirer of Dorothy’s.”