“They were ducks, dear,” laughed Etta, taking Clementina’s grim face between her dainty hands. “Ducks like you.”
Clementina suffered the caress with a wry mouth.
“I think you’re getting better,” she said. “And I’m jolly glad of it. To have one young idiot on my hands ill with congestion of the lungs and another ill with congestion of the heart—both at the same time—is more than I bargained for. I suppose you think I’m a sort of Sister of Charity. Why don’t you do as your father tells you and go down to your Aunt What’s-her-name in Somersetshire?”
Etta made a grimace. “Aunt Elmira would drive me crazy. You’re much more wholesome for me. And as for father”—she tossed her pretty head—“he has to do what he’s told.”
So Etta remained in town, her convalescence synchronising with that of Tommy Burgrave. Clementina began to find time to breathe and to make up arrears of work. As soon as Tommy was able to take his walks abroad, and Etta to seek distraction in the society of her acquaintance, Clementina shut herself up in her studio, forbidding the young people to come near her, and for a week painted the livelong day. At last, one morning two piteous letters were smuggled almost simultaneously into the studio.
“. . . I haven’t seen you for months and months. Do let me come to dinner to-night. . . . Tommy.”
“. . . Oh darling, DO come to tea this afternoon. . . . Etta.”
“I shall go and paint in the Sahara,” cried Clementina. But she seized two dirty scraps of paper and scrawled on them:
“Lord, yes, child, come to dinner.”
“Lord, yes, child, I’ll come to tea.” and having folded them crookedly despatched them to her young friends.