A few days later, driving through Bryanston Street in a
hansom, Elfrida saw the windows of Kendal's studio wide
open. She leaned forward to realize it with a little
tumult of excitement at the possibility it indicated,
half turned to bid the cabman stop, and rolled on undecided.
Presently she spoke to him.
"Please go back to number sixty-three," she said, "I want
to get out there," and in a moment or two she was tripping
lightly up the stairs.
Kendal, in his shirt-sleeves, with his back to the door,
was bending over a palette that clung obstinately to the
hardened round dabs of color he had left upon it six
weeks before. He threw it down at Elfrida's step, and
turned with a sudden light of pleasure in his face to
see her framed in the doorway, looking at him with an
odd shyness and silence. "You spirit!" he cried, "how
did you know I had come back?" and he held her hand for
just an appreciable instant, regarding her with simple
delight. Her tinge of embarrassment became her sweetly,
and the pleasure in his eyes made her almost instantly
aware of this.
"I didn't know," she said, with a smile that shared his
feeling. "I saw the windows open, and I thought the woman
downstairs might be messing about here.
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