Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/218

 This afternoon she had come out in red spots again and taken to her bed. A new maid, the tenth or twelfth since Grover's advent, was making sullen journeys from the kitchen to the bedroom with cold water and vinegar. Her manner let it be known that she thought her mistress's head was aching on purpose.

Through his own head, as he stood desperately at the window, idle, unrelated thoughts were wandering. Rhoda Marple wouldn't have let a stranger buy stockings for her; she would have waited for Father, or John, or Spike Daggett, or she would have had enough in her purse, or she would have bought a reel of silk and a needle and mended the tear, or rather, she wouldn't have torn the stocking at all because she wouldn't have been rushing across town alone to keep a squinty appointment in a studio. Was Olga a model? Probably not, for it had been late in the afternoon, and models functioned in the light of morning. Though what a joy to portray that cool, clear, white, firm flesh with its shadows of honey and amber.

As he hummed the tune he wondered whether he was being morbidly sentimental. Mme. Choiseul was right: it was unhealthy to be so much alone, unhealthy to keep conjuring up the picture of a girl who was no more to him than a flitting vision. Rather than remain in his present slough he ought to force himself to be