“If there’s nothing further——”
“Not food—if you mean that,” said Hood.
“But about Pierrette!” Deering exclaimed despairingly. “If she’s likely to come, we must wait for her.”
“I rather advise you against it,” the girl answered. “I have no idea when she will come back.”
They rose instinctively as she passed out. The door fanned a moment and was still.
“Well?” demanded Deering ironically.
“Please don’t speak to me in that tone,” responded Hood. “This was your breakfast, not mine; you needn’t scold me if it didn’t go to suit you! Ah, what have we here!”
He had drawn back a curtain at one end of the dining-room, disclosing a studio beyond. It was evidently a practical workshop and bore traces of recent use. Deering passed him and strode toward an easel that supported a canvas on which the paint was still wet. He cried out in astonishment:
“That’s the moon girl—that’s the girl I talked to last night—clown clothes and all! She’s sitting on the wall there just as I found her.”
“A sophisticated brush; no amateur’s job,” Hood muttered, squinting at the canvas. “Seems to me I’ve seen that sort of thing somewhere lately—Pantaloon, Harlequin, Columbine, and Clown—latest fad in magazine covers. We’re in the studio of a popular illustrator—there’s a bunch of proofs on the table, and those things on the floor are from the same hand. Signature in the corner a trifle obscure—Mary B. Taylor.”