“You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter,” reflected the stalwart Adonis. “Is that Patagonian art?”
“Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression of doubt and despair. That,” he added, splashing in a prodigal streak of whooping scarlet, “is resurgent joy surmounting the misty mountain-tops of—”
The opening door below him cut short the disquisition.
“Reg!” cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big young man’s ready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken occupant of the dizzy plank heard her muffled voice quaver: “Wh—wh—wh—why didn’t you come before?”
To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: “You little idiot!”
The door closed after them. Martin Dyke, amateur house painter, continued blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radiant hues. After interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsed minutes) the tenant escorted her visitor to the door and stood watching him as the powerful and unassertive motor departed. Dazedly the artist descended from his plank to face her.
“Are you going?” he demanded.
A perfectly justifiable response to this unauthorized query would have been that it was no concern of his. But there was that in Martin Dyke’s face which hurt the girl to see.
“Yes,” she replied.
“With him?”