"I live here." He followed her gaze. It rested on a picture of cows in a field. "Late American school," he said. "Attributed to the landlady's niece, a graduate of the Wissahickon, Pa. Correspondence School of Pictorial Art. Said to be genuine."
"You live here?" repeated Ann. She had been brought up all her life among the carefully thought out effects of eminent interior decorators, and the room seemed more dreadful to her than it actually was. "What an awful room!"
"Awful? You must be overlooking the piano. Can't you see the handsome plush cover from where you are standing? Move a little to the southeast and shade your eyes. We get music here of an evening—when we don't see it coming and sidestep."
"Why in the name of goodness do you live here, Mr. Bayliss?"
"Because, Miss Chester, I am infernally hard up! Because the Bayliss bank-roll has been stricken with a wasting sickness."
Ann was looking at him incredulously.
"But—but—then, did you really mean all that at lunch the other day? I thought you were joking. I took it for granted that you could get work whenever you wanted to or you wouldn't have made fun of it like that! Can't you really find anything to do?"
"Plenty to do. But I'm not paid for it. I walk a great number of blocks and jump into a great number of cars and dive into elevators and dive out again and open doors and say 'Good morning' when people tell me they haven't a job for me. My days are quite full, but my pocket-book isn't!"
Ann had forgotten all about her errand in her sympathy.
"I'm so sorry. Why, it's terrible! I should have thought you could have found something."