"
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.
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