Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/62

60 matter what I do. It doesn't matter, I tell you. I shall never come near you again."

He turned round and fairly bolted up the side street. Teresa walked on down the avenue, holding her muff against her face, and drying her tears behind it. She became aware that she must get out of the street, and that she wanted some tea—hot, strong, and bracing. She called a cab, and drove down to her rooms. Miss Pease was busy with some visitors in the studio, and Teresa made her own tea in the dining-room, and cried by herself on the divan while the water was heating. She had taken off her hat and was mopping very red eyes with a damp handkerchief when Miss Pease, a subdued-looking girl, came in with a little bronze, a finger-high study of a naked child playing with a frog.

"A lady wants to know if she can have this for thirty dollars, instead of thirty-five" she began neutrally, then said in embarrassment, "Oh, I beg your pardon"

"Tell her she can't have it at all. Tell her it's sold," snapped Teresa.

"But" began timidly Miss Pease.

"Tell her it's sold!"

Teresa made her tea almost black, and drank three large cups of it. Then she took out her little silver cigarette-case and began to smoke, lying back on the divan. She had ceased to cry, and felt perfectly indifferent to every-