Page:The Finer Grain (London, Methuen & Co., 1910).djvu/69

Rh of life,—when it breaks out with real freedom? It has never broken out here, my dear, for long enough to leave its breath on the window-pane. But they've got it strong down there, in Puddick's studio."

She looked at him as if she didn't even understand his language, and she flopped thereby into the trap set for her by a single word. "Is she living in the studio?"

He didn't avoid her eyes. "I don't know where she's living."

"And do I understand that you didn't ask him? "

"It was none of my business,—I felt that there in an unexpected way; I couldn't somehow not feel it,—and I suggest, my dear, accordingly, that it's also none of yours. I wouldn't answer, if you really want to know," he wound up, hanging fire an instant, but candidly bringing it out,—"I wouldn't answer, if you really want to know, for their relations."

Jane's eyebrows mounted, and mounted. "Whoever in the world would?"

He waited a minute, looking off at his balanced picture,—though not as if now really seeing it. "I'm not talking of what the vulgar would say,—or are saying, of course, to their fill. I'm not talking of what those relations may be. I'm talking—well," he said, "of what they mayn't."

"You mean, they may be innocent?"

"I think it possible. They're, as he calls it, a 'rum' pair. They're not like us."

"If we're not like them," she broke in, "I grant you I hope not."