"Oh, Philip," she cried, "say that you are only teasing me, that you don't mean a word of it."
"Yes, dear, I am only teasing you," said Philip indifferently. "Now, little wife, you must be quiet and let me work, or this portrait will never be finished to-day."
Philip looked at the clock, then at his watch. It was half-past one. A ring was heard at the studio door. He shivered with excitement. "It is perhaps de Lussac," he said to himself.
"I hope it is not that bothering Sir Benjamin coming to disturb me," he said to Dora.
Gerald Lorimer, for whom there was always a cover laid at Philip's table, entered the studio.
"Why, it's Lorimer," exclaimed Philip, rising, and going to shake hands with his friend. "I am as hungry as a hound; I'll go and wash my hands, and we'll have lunch at once."
"Well, and how goes the portrait?" said Lorimer.
"My dear fellow," replied Philip, "I shall have to take a studio a mile or two off, so that my wife will not be able to come and chatter and hinder me from working. Look at it: here have I been for the past two hours in front of this easel, and done half an hour's painting at most."
Philip ran upstairs to wash and change his coat, and quickly rejoined Dora and Lorimer in the dining-room.