With that he swung off down the street, past some big thoroughfares, then he cut across a mesh of alleys and courts, out into some dingy squares, landing at last in Bloomsbury Square. He walked round till he got to a tall narrow house in a corner, where he pulled up, pushed open the door, which was ajar, and went upstairs to the fifth story where he found a door with “Mr. Brydon” painted on it in big letters. He opened it, and walked in.
A big fair boy with a cigarette in his mouth was sitting before an easel, touching up a background; he spoke in a soft tired voice without turning an inch of himself.
“Excuse me, Carry, I can’t possibly stand up, I am wrestling with a curtain. Kindly sit down and begin your apologies. Was Ma’s ‘neuralgy’ bad, or the baby? Was it ‘it’? I am not quite certain as to the sex of the last.—By the way, don’t they come with undue speed, those babies, or do you spread all the diseases out on one?—Or did Pa go for you and render your nose unfit for immortality? Two hours behind time to-day, that’s nothing to you in the day’s work, no doubt, but I may remark that it’s slightly inconvenient to me, as I prefer daylight to dark to catch the super-excellent tones of your skin.”
“I should have thought on the whole that the glow——”
“Strange!” he cried with a soft slow gurgle of intense delight, and lifting himself clumsily up from his seat, he caught Strange’s hand in a close clasp and pushed him back into an old frilled arm-chair.
“I thought you were in Algeria. It was a dangerous experiment, old fellow; the betting was ten to one that I was painting off a model, and I am continually overlooking that lock. You’re only just back, I see. What a glorious dusty smooth red you’ve got on your cheeks! For goodness sake, let me have it before gas and sich play the deuce with it.”
“Take it, my child, take it. What a pity you didn’t have the beard too! that was a far more glorious red, and a sight dustier, but I parted with it this morning.”
“Thank you, I’ve seen your bristles once; I never wish to behold them again. Now smoke, and I’ll just have a shy at catching that tint, it’s precisely what I want for this beggar’s cheek. My model had it to perfection, but they clapped him into quad for prigging saveloys, and when he comes out he will be useless, the colour of bad paste.”
“Your room’s hardly serious enough; it’s pretty, in a doll’s-house style.”
“Serious! I can’t afford that. One can’t extract seriousness from rags, but the colours are good and the cost small. Look at the drapery hiding the crack in the wall in that corner, fourpence-halfpenny the yard and a reduction by the piece!”