“Good heavens! Does he go to see you?” she cried, with what would appear to be uncalled-for emphasis.
“Yes; he comes now and again, but I am always out. We generally meet somewhere about the place, and then we get on very well. He had a tiresome habit of coming and looking over my shoulder at Brignal, but I have trained him not to stay very long.”
“Is he married?” she enquired, eagerly.
“Yes; that was his wife in the pew to the right.”
“Does she come and look over your shoulder, too?”
“She takes a tender interest in my work,” Rivers said, laughing. “She is by way of being an artist herself, you see.”
“That little, starved, angular, high-cheek-boned woman, without a touch of artistic feeling about her, and bonnet strings of the wrong colour!”
“You must not go by bonnet strings entirely. They are a matter of convention. Mrs. Popham has a very good eye for colour, let me tell you, only she is dreadfully shy of publicity, and would think it quite improper to exhibit. One never knows into what vessels the spirit will be poured. I go in in the evening sometimes and look over her sketches; she is very good to me. She walked all the way to Brignal once, with a cork mat for me to put my feet on!”
“And did you use it? I never see you!”
“It bores me—that sort of thing bores me. You will find it in my sketching bag, though.”