“I don’t like working over scraped paint when I’m doing flesh. The grain comes up woolly as the paint dries.”
“Not if you scrape properly.” Maisie waved her hand to illustrate her methods. There was a dab of paint on the white cuff. Dick laughed.
“You’re as untidy as ever.”
“That comes well from you. Look at your own cuff.”
“By Jove, yes! It’s worse than yours. I don’t think we’ve much altered in anything. Let’s see, though.” He looked at Maisie critically. The pale blue haze of an autumn day crept between the tree-trunks of the Park and made a background for the gray dress, the black velvet toque above the black hair, and the resolute profile.
“No, there’s nothing changed. How good it is! D’you remember when I fastened your hair into the snap of a hand-bag?”
Maisie nodded, with a twinkle in her eyes, and turned her full face to Dick.
“Wait a minute,” said he. “That mouth is down at the corners a little.
Who’s been worrying you, Maisie?”
“No one but myself. I never seem to get on with my work, and yet I try hard enough, and Kami says——”