“Well?”
“I suggested it myself. He’s not strong enough to go back to his own place yet. I thought we could both paint there. Lots of fellows in the Quarter share a studio. I thought it would be fun. I’ve always thought it would be jolly to have someone to talk to when one was tired of work.”
He said all this slowly, detaching statement from statement with a little awkward silence, and he kept his kind, foolish eyes fixed on mine. They were full of tears.
“I don’t think I understand,” I said.
“Strickland can’t work with anyone else in the studio.”
“Damn it all, it’s your studio. That’s his lookout.”
He looked at me pitifully. His lips were trembling.
“What happened?” I asked, rather sharply.
He hesitated and flushed. He glanced unhappily at one of the pictures on the wall.
“He wouldn’t let me go on painting. He told me to get out.”