Again and again Anthony painted her. She sat for him with untiring patience and devotion. She was always entirely at her ease with him, and prattled away quite simply of the life that seemed to him so inexpressibly hard and dreary.
Only once had he interfered on her behalf at Ribston Hall, and then sorely against Meg's will. She was sitting for him one day, with her veil of flaming hair spread round her, when she said, suddenly, "I wonder why it is incorrect to send invitations by post to people living in the same town?"
"But it isn't," Anthony objected. "Everybody does it."
"Not in schools," Meg said firmly. "Mrs. Ross-Morton will never send invitations to people living in London through the post—she says it isn't polite. They must go by hand."
"I never heard such nonsense," Anthony exclaimed crossly. "If she doesn't send 'em by post, how does she send them?"
"I take them generally, in the evening, after school, and deliver them at all the houses. Some are fairly near, of course—a lot of her friends live in Regent's Park—but sometimes I have to go quite a long way by bus. I don't mind that in summer, when it's light, but in winter it's horrid going about the lonely roads ... People speak to one...."
Anthony Ross stepped from behind his easel.
"And what do you do?" he asked.
"I run," Meg said simply, "and I can generally run much faster than they do ... but it's a little bit frightening."
"It's infernal," Anthony said furiously. "I shall speak to Amelia at once. You are never to do it again."