e.'

She was walking towards him from the Marble Arch, and he saw that no
mannerism of her gait had been changed. It was good to find her still
Maisie, and, so to speak, his next-door neighbour. No greeting passed
between them, because there had been none in the old days.

'What are you doing out of your studio at this hour?' said Dick, as one
who was entitled to ask.

'Idling. Just idling. I got angry with a chin and scraped it out. Then I
left it in a little heap of paint-chips and came away.'

'I know what palette-knifing means. What was the piccy?'

'A fancy head that wouldn't come right,--horrid thing!'

'I don't like working over scraped paint when I'm doing flesh. The grain
comes up woolly as the paint dries.'

'Not if you scrape properly.' Maisie waved her hand to illustrate her
methods. There was a dab of paint on the white cuff. Dick laughed.

'You're as untidy as ever.'

'That comes well from you. Look at your own cuff.'

'By Jove, yes! It's worse than yours. I don't think we've much altered
in anything. Let's see, though.' He looked at Maisie critically. The
pale blue haze of an autumn day crept between the tree-trunks of the
Park and made a background for the gray dress, the black velvet toque
above the black hair, and the resolute profile.

'No, there's nothing changed. How good it is! D'you remember when I
fastened your hair into the snap of a hand-bag?'

Maisie nodded, with a twinkle in her eyes, and turned her full face to
Dick.

'Wait a minute,' said he. 'That mouth is down at the corners a little.

Who's been worrying you, Maisie?'

'No one but myself. I never seem to get on with my work, and yet I try
hard enough, and Kami says----'

'"Continuez, mesdemoiselles. Continuez toujours, mes enfants." Kami is
depressing. I beg your pardon.'

'Yes, that's what he says. He told me last summer that I was doing
better and he'd let me exhibit this year.'

'Not in this place, surely?'

'Of course not. The Salon.'

'You fly high.'

'I've been beating my wings long enough. Where do you exhibit, Dick?'

'I don't exhibit. I sell.'

'What is your line, then?'

'Haven't you heard?' Dick's eyes opened. Was this thing possible? He
cast about for some means of conviction. They were not far from the
Marble Arch. 'Come up Oxford Street a little and I'll show you.'

A small knot of people stood round a print-shop that Dick knew well.

'Some reproduction of my work inside,' he said, with supp