“He deserves it. I shall have the studio floor thoroughly scrubbed while you're away. It's very dirty.”
Maisie had enjoyed no sort of holiday for months and looked forward to the little excitement, but not without misgivings.
“There's nobody nicer than Dick when he talks sensibly,” she thought, “but I'm sure he'll be silly and worry me, and I'm sure I can't tell him anything he'd like to hear. If he'd only be sensible, I should like him so much better.”
Dick's eyes were full of joy when he made his appearance next morning and saw Maisie, gray-ulstered and black-velvet-hatted, standing in the hallway. Palaces of marble, and not sordid imitation of grained wood, were surely the fittest background for such a divinity. The red-haired girl drew her into the studio for a moment and kissed her hurriedly.
Maisie's eyebrows climbed to the top of her forehead; she was altogether unused to these demonstrations. “Mind my hat,” she said, hurrying away, and ran down the steps to Dick waiting by the hansom.
“Are you quite warm enough! Are you sure you wouldn't like some more breakfast? Put the cloak over your knees.”
“I'm quite comf'y, thanks. Where are we going, Dick? Oh, do stop singing like that. People will think we're mad.”
“Let 'em think,—if the exertion doesn't kill them. They don't know who we are, and I'm sure I don't care who they are. My faith, Maisie, you're looking lovely!”
Maisie stared directly in front of her and did not reply. The wind of a keen clear winter morning had put colour into her cheeks. Overhead, the creamy-yellow smoke-clouds were thinning away one by one against a pale-blue sky, and the improvident sparrows broke off from water-spout committees and cab-rank cabals to clamour of the coming of spring.
“It will be lovely weather in the country,” said Dick.