"Who was the purchaser?" Fairfax looked at the receipt he was given to sign and read: "Sold to Mr. Cedersholm."
"Mais non," he exclaimed shortly, "ça, non!"
He was assured, however, that it was the American sculptor and no other. On his way home he reflected, "She sent him to purchase it." And the five hundred francs bill burned in his pocket. Then he called himself a fool and asked what possible interest she could still have in Thomas Rainsford, whose news she had not taken in four weeks. And also, he reflected, that so far as Cedersholm was concerned, Thomas Rainsford had nothing
to do with Antony Fairfax. "He merely admired my work," he reflected bitterly. "He has seemed always singularly to admire it."
He paid some pressing debts, got his clothes out of pawn, left Dearborn what he wanted, and was relieved when the last sou of the money was gone.
"I wonder, Bob," he said to Dearborn, "when I shall ever have any 'serious money.'" And with sudden tenderness he thought of Bella.
Dearborn, who had also recovered a partially decent suit of clothes, displayed his trousers and said—
"I think some chap has been wearing my clothes and stretched them." They hung loose on him.
Fairfax laughed. "You have only shrunk, Bob, that's all. You need feeding up."
The studio had undergone a slight transformation, which the young men had been forced to accede to. A grand piano covered with a bright bit of brocade stood in the centre of the studio, a huge armchair, with a revolving smoking-table, by its side. The chair was for Dearborn to loll in and dream in whilst Potowski played and sang at the piano. Dearborn was thus supposed to work the libretto for "Fiametta."