The Incomplete Amorist

Vernon's idea of a studio was a place to work in, a place where there should be room for all the tools of one's trade, and besides, a great space to walk up and down in those moods that seize on all artists when their work will not come as they want it.

But when he gave tea-parties he had store of draperies to pull out from his carved cupboard, deeply coloured things embroidered in rich silk and heavy gold--Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Russian.

He came in to-day with an armful of fair chrysanthemums, deftly set them in tall brazen jars, pulled out his draperies and arranged them swiftly. There was a screen to be hung with a Chinese mandarin's dress, where, on black, gold dragons writhed squarely among blue roses; the couch was covered by a red burnous with a gold border. There were Persian praying mats to lay on the bare floor, kakemonos to be fastened with drawing pins on the bare walls. A tea cloth worked by Russian peasants lay under the tea-cups--two only--of yellow Chinese egg-shell ware. His tea-pot and cream-jug were Queen Anne silver, heirlooms at which he mocked. But he saw to it that they were kept bright.

He lighted the spirit-lamp.

"She was always confoundedly punctual," he said.

But to-day Lady St. Craye was not punctual. She arrived half an hour late, and the delay had given her host time to think about her.

He heard her voice in the courtyard at last--but the only window that looked that way was set high in the wall of the little corridor, and he could not see who it was to whom she was talking. And he wondered, because the inflection of her voice was English--not the exquisite imitation of the French inflexion which he had so often admired in her.

He opened the door and went to the stair head. The voices were coming up the steps.

"A caller," said Vernon, and added a word or two. However little you may be in love with a woman, two is better company than three.

The voices came up. He saw the golden brown shimmer of Lady St. Craye's hat, and knew that it matched her hair and that there would be violets somewhere under the brim of it--violets that would make her eyes look violet too. She was coming up--a man just behind her. She came round the last turn, and the man was Temple.

"What an Alpine ascent!" she exclaimed, reaching up her hand so that Vernon drew her up the last three steps. "We have been hunting you together, on both the other staircases. Now that the chase is ended, won't you present your friend? And I'll bow to him as soon as I'm on firm ground!"