"But what is it?"
"The drummer. Amy thinks he means to shake her, and she's gone all to pieces. I ran in there to ask for the rent, which is 'way behind, and found her all in a heap. It was no place for P.B. Amy needs another woman and needs her bad; and it seems to be up to you. I know it's tough, asking you to go back to the Lorna Doone where every stick of furniture—"
"I'll go," she interrupted. "If Amy didn't need me, I know you would not have come."
"I'm afraid I can't wait to ride up with you," Paul apologized. "You see, I'm only here between appointments, and—"
"I understand. Besides, I must see Mr. Atwood first."
She mounted hurriedly to the billiard-room where Craig must still be at work, but hesitated on the threshold. The door was half open, and, unseen herself, she saw both painter and sitter. Virginia Hepworth had dropped her pose and had come behind Craig's chair. Neither spoke, though his brush was idle. They merely faced the canvas in a silence, the long-standing intimacy of which stabbed Jean with a jealous pang and sent her away with her message unspoken.
She trusted Craig, but she could not trust herself, and deemed it the part of wisdom to leave word with the dispassionate butler that a friend's sickness would prevent her going to the studio.
XXVII
Jean entered the Lorna Doone with a sense of having known the place in some former life. Its braggart onyx, its rugs, its palms, all the veneer which went to make for "tone"—that fetich of the dentist—greeted her with a luster scarcely dimmed; the negro hall-boy flashed a toothful smile of recognition; and even a scratch, which their moving had left on the green denim by the flat door, had its keen associations.