.

'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 losing game at Port Said we used to double
the stakes and go on. She do a Melancolia! She hasn't the power, or the
insight, or the training. Only the desire. She's cursed with the curse
of Reuben. She won't do line-work, because it means real work; and yet
she's stronger than I am. I'll make her understand that I can beat her
on her own Melancolia. Even then she wouldn't care. She says I can only
do blood and bones. I don't believe she has blood in her veins. All the
same I lover her; and I must go on loving her; and if I can humble her
inordinate vanity I will. I'll do a Melancolia that shall be something
like a Melancolia--"the Melancolia that transcends all wit." I'll do it
at once, con--bless her.'

He discovered that the notion would not come to order, and that he could
not free his mind for an hour from the thought of Maisie's departure.
He took very small interest in her rough studies for the Melancolia when
she showed them next week. The Sundays were racing past, and the time
was at hand when all the church bells in London could not ring
Maisie back to him. Once or twice he said something to Binkie about
'hermaphroditic futilities,' but the little dog received so many
confidences both from Torpenhow and Dick that he did not trouble his
tulip-ears to listen.

Dick was permitted to see the girls off. They were going by the Dover
night-boat; and they hoped to return in August. It was then February,
and Dick felt that he was being hardly used. Maisie was so busy
stripping the small house across the Park, and packing her canvases,
that she had not time for thought. Dick went down to Dover and wasted
a day there fretting