“Do you know this lady who is coming to lunch?” he asked, carelessly.
The match burnt Kingslake’s fingers as he raised his head, and he uttered a hasty observation.
“I met her the other day in town,” he added, as a pendant.
“Is she a modern woman?” asked Mayne. The casualness of his tone reassured Robert.
“Yes,” he returned, emphatically. “At least I should imagine so. She’s an artist. Has a studio of her own, and so forth. She’s had a hard time of it, poor girl....” He looked meditatively at the glowing end of his cigarette. “There’s a woman now,” he broke out, “who has an absolute, a perfectly disinterested love of art for its own sake. She’s a case in point.”
“Did she tell you so?”
“Yes,” returned Robert, unguardedly, warming to his subject. “She doesn’t think of love; she doesn’t want it. She looks upon it as unnecessary—a hindrance—a barrier to her intellectual life.”
“Rather a communicative young lady, eh?” was Mayne’s comment.
Robert flushed. “Oh, in the course of conversation....” he began, hurriedly. He was cut short by Diana, who emerged from the porch with a tray of cut flowers.
“I’m going to do them out here,” she began. “It’s too boiling for anything in the house. Robert!” as her eyes fell upon him, “why are you idling here? Out for five minutes’ play, I suppose. That’s right. Get back to your work like a good little fellow, and see what an industrious boy you can be. It’s not nearly lunch-time yet.”