“Your studio,” he said, “is charming. Dan and I watched the furniture coming in on Thursday morning. If it is not impertinent of me, may I congratulate you on it?”
“Glad you like it,” said Miss Mason. “It’s the first studio I’ve ever seen, but it’s the kind I always wanted. Have always pictured studios in my mind like this one.”
“You’re lucky in your mental images,” said Dan. “If you saw ours——” he broke off and shrugged his shoulders.
“But perhaps,” said Miss Mason anxiously, “yours is the real thing, and mine——”
“Yours,” said Barnabas, “is the dream to which we aspire, and to which we cannot achieve. When you see ours—and we hope you will honour us with your presence—you will realize how very far short of our aspirations they must fall.”
“But,” said Miss Mason almost wistfully, “you paint real pictures in them.”
“Try to do so,” said Dan gruffly, “and a few of us succeed. Even in that most of us fail as we fail in our furniture. Paul and Michael are our geniuses.”
“Paul and Michael?” queried Miss Mason.
“Mr. Treherne and Mr. Chester,” explained Barnabas. “They live in studios numbers one and three respectively. Jasper Merton has number five, Alan Farley number four, Dan number two, and mine is number six, next door to you.”
“The garden with the faun,” said Miss Mason.