And the gods of Joy and Laughter, who cannot breathe in such an atmosphere, would silently depart. Now, however, they had found their way back, slipping easily and gladly into the place they loved.
When, half an hour later, Michael limped down the garden path with Paul, he nodded in the direction of studio number seven.
“Shall we say Tuesday afternoon for our call?” he asked carelessly.
Paul had a momentary feeling of surprise. He did not show it.
“Right,” he replied equally carelessly.
And the little faun laughed to hear them, and piped a madder dance still to the rose-petals which had whirled below his pedestal at intervals throughout the day.
CHAPTER VIII
A MAN’S CONSCIENCE
JASPER Merton was a man who had been born with a curious kind of conscience. He was perpetually looking at it, dusting it, and seeing that it kept in what he considered perfect working order. In reality it only worked spasmodically and at unexpected intervals. He possessed, also, an enormous amount of that quality which is generally termed artistic sensitiveness, but which is most frequently a polite and pretty name for selfishness. He see-sawed between conscience and—it must be given its right name—selfishness, in a manner which made his life not only uncomfortable to himself, but almost equally uncomfortable to others.
He had, too, a skeleton which he kept in a cupboard, in other words, in a small—a very small—house in Chiswick. That skeleton was a woman. She was his wife, and a secret.