some of my work is good, if only people could see. And you needn't have been so rude about it.'
'I'm sorry. We'll talk the Melancolia over some one of the other Sundays. There are four more—yes, one, two, three, four—before you go. Good-bye, Maisie.'
Maisie stood by the studio window, thinking, till the red-haired girl returned, a little white at the corners of her lips.
'Dick's gone off,' said Maisie. 'Just when I wanted to talk about the picture. Isn't it selfish of him?'
Her companion opened her lips as if to speak, shut them again, and went on reading The City of Dreadful Night.
Dick was in the Park, walking round and round a tree that he had chosen as his confidante for many Sundays past. He was swearing audibly, and when he found that the infirmities of the English tongue hemmed in his rage, he sought consolation in Arabic, which is expressly designed for the use of the afflicted. He was not pleased with the reward of his patient service; nor was he pleased with himself; and it was long before he arrived at the proposition that the queen could do no wrong.
'It's a losing game,' he said. 'I'm worth nothing when a whim of hers is in question. But in a
N
