‘Would you like London?’
Avice’s face lost its weeping shape. ‘How could that be?’ she said.
‘I have been thinking that you could come to my house and make yourself useful in some way. I rent just now one of those new places called flats, which you may have heard of; and I have a studio at the back.’
‘I haven’t heard of ‘em,’ she said without interest.
‘Well, I have two servants there, and as my man has a holiday you can help them for a month or two.’
‘Would polishing furniture be any good? I can do that.’
‘I haven’t much furniture that requires polishing. But you can clear away plaster and clay messes in the studio, and chippings of stone, and help me in modelling, and dust all my Venus failures, and hands and heads and feet and bones, and other objects.’
She was startled, yet attracted by the novelty of the proposal.
‘Only for a time?’ she said.
‘Only for a time. As short as you like, and as long.’