Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/76



eight o'clock the following evening the dowdy old lady in black, the innocent-eyed grandchild, and the uniformed nurse duly made their appearance at the door of the Palermo miniature-painter. Here they were duly admitted, and, as on the day before, disposed themselves in their various places.

Outwardly, the studio showed no signs of change. Yet on this occasion some newer and undefined spirit of tension intruded itself on that incongruous circle. The old lady with the ear-trumpet, it is true, apparently made herself quite comfortable in the arm-chair. But before doing so she moved this chair back against the farthest wall of the room.

She betrayed no active interest in the scene before her, it is equally true, yet at no time did she permit the eyes behind the amber glasses to close in slumber.

The somewhat mystified nurse no longer found relish in the pages of her Sudermann. The artist bending over the drawing-desk no longer struggled to talk in broken German with her youthful sitter. She worked on her oval of ivory with perfunctory and spasmodic haste, interrupted by brief spaces of inaction. During these interims of idleness she sat staring thoughtfully at the sloping desk-top in front of her.

The silence weighed heavily on the child in the stiff-backed chair. She moved restlessly, from time