"No; we were only going to the South Kensington Museum, and I was in two minds about it. Come up, won't you?" Louie replied.
At first Evie wouldn't hear of it, but even as she spoke she had ascended another step. They went upstairs again, and Louie put her key into the lock. "You'll excuse me a moment, won't you?" she said, as Evie entered. "In there's my sitting-room."
And she herself, turning along the passage, entered her bedroom and took that old study of Billy Izzard's from its paper wrappings. She hung it up on its old nail. If Evie Jeffries wished to see her flat she should see her flat. Then she returned to the front room that looked away over the trees and houses to Earls Court.
"So this," said Evie, as she entered, "is your little boy!"
"Yes, that's Jim. Won't you sit down? I'll put the kettle on and we'll have tea."
She went into the kitchen, filled the tin kettle, and set it on the gas-ring.
Evie was dressed in an exquisite coat and skirt and an expensive and wrong hat; silk linings made whispers whenever she moved; but Louie, who kept her good clothes for the Consolidation, wore the battered old grey felt hat and long grey coat in which she had passed from studio to studio. But she knew that Evie envied her her distinction of motion. Evie's figure was pretty and "stock," charming but with no surprise—that of a demonstrable beauty. And the acquired tones had come into her voice again.
"How ripping up here!" she approved. "Such a splendid—view! I wish we had a view like it in Iddesleigh Gate; but as I told my husband, even money can't buy a view in London. Delightful! Have you the morning sun?"
"That's in my bedroom," said Louie. "How did you come—by car?"
"No; I felt that I needed the walk. Really people will be forgetting how to walk soon. Well, at all events, he's a beautiful boy!"