Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/50

40 hands—he had at least three portraits to finish before going to Spain. And he adverted with bitterness to the journey to Spain—a little excursion laid out precisely with his friend Probert for the last weeks of the spring, the first of the southern summer, the time of the long days and the real light. Gaston Probert re-echoed his regrets, for though he had no business with Miss Francina (he liked her name), he also wanted to see her again. They half agreed to give up Spain (they had, after all, been there before), so that Waterlow might take the girl in hand without delay, the moment he had knocked off his present work. This amendment did not hold however, for other considerations came up and the artist resigned himself to the arrangement on which the Miss Dossons had quitted him: he thought it so characteristic of their nationality that they should settle a matter of that sort for themselves. This was simply that they should come back in the autumn, when he should be comparatively free: then there would be a margin and they might all take their time. At present, before long (by the time he should be ready), the question of Miss Francina's leaving Paris for the summer would be sure to come up, and that would be a tiresome interruption. She liked Paris, she had no plans for the autumn and only wanted a reason to come back about the twentieth of September. Mr. Waterlow remarked humorously that she evidently bossed