They returned silently. The next morning Miss Marston appeared at the usual hour and made the coffee. After Clayton had finished his meagre meal, she sat down shyly and looked at him.
"You've never interested yourself much in my plans, but I am going to tell you some of them. I'm sick of living about like a neglected cat, and I am going to New York to—to keep boarders." Her face grew very red. "They will make a fuss, but I am ready to break with them all."
"So you, too, find dependence a burden?" commented Clayton, indifferently.
"You haven't taken much pains to know me," she replied. "And if I were a man," she went on, with great scorn, "I would die before I would be dependent!"
"Talking about insults—but an artist isn't a man," remarked Clayton, philosophically smoking his pipe.
"I hate you when you're like that," Miss Marston remarked, with intense bitterness.
"Then you must hate me pretty often! But continue with your plans.
Don't let our little differences in temperament disturb us."
"Well," she continued, "I have written to some friends who spend the winters in New York, and out of them I think I shall find enough boarders—enough to keep me from starving. And the house has a large upper story with a north light." She stopped and peeped at him furtively.
"Oh," said Clayton, coolly, "and you're thinking that I would make a good tenant."
"Exactly," assented Miss Marston, uncomfortably.