“Not that!” he said angrily.
“Unpack them; you can put them away afterward,” she said casually.
He looked at her so furiously that, for a moment, she half expected an angry answer. Then he laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“I know your idea—little good it will do!” he said, with a stubborn look, and went to the window, gazing out without further notice of what she did.
There was yet much to be done, but the essential had been accomplished. The studio had been rid of boxes and wrappings, and though frames and bric-à-brac, porcelains, bronzes, terra cottas, stood against the walls, mingled with the dull gray of rapiers, green masks and brown boxing gloves, with glowing pools of burnished copper, the room was humanized.
“That’s enough for to-night,” she said, after she had sent Sassafras away.
He turned, and the first thing he saw was the easel.
“You seem to know where to place it,” he said abruptly.
“I am glad that’s right,” she said quietly.
“Well, now that you’ve gotten me to do it,” he said, staring dully about the room, his nails at his mouth, “we’ll see what will come of it.”