"
There was a sweet glory of May sunlight in the streets
outside, and she seemed to bring some of it in with her,
as well as the actual perfume of the bunch of violets
which she wore in her belt. Her eyes, under the queerest
of hats, were bright and soft, there was a faint color
in her cheeks. Her shapely hands were in gray gloves with
long gauntlets, and in one of them she carried a
business-like little black notebook.
She came in with a shy hesitation that became her very
well, and as she approached, their old understanding
immediately arranged itself between them. "I should be
perfectly justified in sulking," he declared gaily,
disencumbering a chair of a battered tin box of empty
twisted tubes for her, "and asking you to what I might
attribute the honor of this visit." He put up his eye-glass
and stared through it with an absurd affectation of
dignified astonishment. "But I'll magnanimously admit
that I'm delighted to see you. I'll even lay aside my
wounded sensibilities enough to ask you where you've
been."
"I!" faltered Elfrida softly, with her wide-eyed smile.
"Oh! as if that were of any consequence!" She stepped
back a pace or two to look at an unpacked canvas, and
her expression changed.
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