Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/209

Rh heard that she is a woman with a sense of humour and a heart; and see if it doesn't cure her depression!"

"I shouldn't be surprised if it did," replied Anna.

When she made ready to go, that day, he forgot to put on her cloak for her, and stood irresolutely looking at her with the old nervous frown come back to his face; and she guessed instinctively that there was something he had to say to her.

"What is it?" she said, involuntarily.

"It's just this," he said, speaking very quickly; "I don't think I shall want you any more after next week, and"

He stopped, although she had not said anything. She looked steadily at the pink silk cloak that hung across the chair, at the jug of wallflowers on the mantel-shelf, at the two empty cups on the upturned wooden box; and she drew in her lips with a sharp breath.

"Yes," she said, and held out her hand. "Good-bye."

"And when may I come and meet the other Anna?" he asked, smiling.

There was already a yard and a half of stone passage between them; and the space was widening every minute, as she backed towards the staircase, and he into the middle studio.

"I am afraid she would have too much sense of humour to receive you," she said, and laughed mockingly, and went away down the long flights of stone stairs.

"It's all right," said Askett, congratulating himself. "She doesn't care. I might have known she wouldn't. These models — ah well!" He flung the pink silk cloak on the floor, and sat down on the chair, and relighted his pipe. "I believe, if she had told me much more about the other girl, I might have fancied myself in love with her. It would be a queer thing, after holding off for all these years, to fall in love with a woman I have never seen! I wonder what it was that fetched me in that child's The Yellow Book — Vol. XIII.