Overjoyed at meeting so unexpectedly, Lance’s reluctance forgotten in the joy of being with his sister and friend, the three of them also came in contact with a new and charming personality and in the midst of a new and beautiful environment.
To Tory Drew an artist’s studio was not a new experience. She had lived with her father in several of their own. She had visited with him the studios of many fellow-artists. But to Dorothy and to Lance a studio outside Westhaven was a fresh interest. Although she could say no word aloud, undoubtedly Tory would have agreed that if other studios had been handsomer, never was one more original or charming.
The room was in gray, a cold background with the northern window save for the warmth of the other coloring.
At this hour the winter daylight was closing in and curtains were partly drawn; they were a curious shade, half rose, half red, and strangely luminous.
On the gray walls were the artist’s own pictures.
They were unlike modern work, and perhaps for this reason less popular. In landscapes and in portraiture the tones were richer and darker.
Expecting two of his three guests, Mr. Winslow had prepared for tea.
An enormous lounge, large enough for sleeping and with a high back, was drawn up in front of a meager fire. Wood was expensive in New York City and Philip Winslow an unsuccessful artist.
The small tea table held an array of china with scarcely two pieces alike, yet each one rarely lovely and gathered with care and taste in the years when their owner had studied in France and Italy. There he had won the Prix de Rome. Not in those days did he dream of living on the top floor of a dilapidated house, in a cheap quarter of the greatest of American cities.
The teakettle was boiling. One could hear the hissing behind the oriental curtains that shut off a single corner of the room.