“Smith can take care of us and cook for us here,” Virginia cried, quickly planning. “And there’s a sweet little room for her. And a bigger little room for Ivor. And the biggest room of all for Virginia, who will sleep on a bed in the corner of the studio, which bed will be a lovely divan by day....”

“But will he sell the lease?” she asked anxiously, and Ivor said Kay Benson would sell anything.

“But I will buy it,” Ivor said. “I found it, and I’m going to buy it. Yah!”

“You might let me, I do think!” Virginia made plaint.

Ivor softened, magnificently:

“Well, we will both buy it—between us!”

“Oh, Ivor, our eyrie! Over Paris, out of ken—our eyrie, Ivor!” And Virginia’s eyes were brighter than a room of a thousand candles....

Thus it was, then, that Ivor and Virginia came to be in a studio on the Butte, on the first day of May, 1919; and intended to stay there, until the business of life should take them to London in October.

CHAPTER XIV

1