Chapter 4

The studio had not changed. The sun flooded it.

Sweetheart sat in the broken armchair and watched me struggle with the packing. Every now and then she made an impulsive movement toward the heap of clothes on the floor, which I checked with a “Thanks! I can fix it all alone, Sweetheart.”

Clifford seemed to extract amusement from it all, and said as much to Rowden, who was as usual ruining my zitherine by trying to play it like a banjo.

Elliott, knowing he could be of no use to us, had the decency to sit outside the studio on one of the garden benches. He appeared at intervals at the studio door, saying, “Come along, Clifford; they don’t want you messing about. Drop that banjo, Rowden, or Jack will break your head with it--won’t you, Jack?”

I said I would, but not with the zitherine.

Clifford flatly refused to move unless Sweetheart would take him out into our garden and show him the solitary goldfish which lurked in the fountain under the almond trees. But Sweetheart, apparently fascinated by the mysteries of packing, turned a deaf ear to Clifford’s blandishments and Rowden’s discords.

“I imagined,” said Clifford, somewhat hurt, “that you would delight in taking upon yourself the duties of a hostess. I should be pleased to believe that I am not an unwelcome guest.”

“So should I,” echoed Rowden; “I’d be pleased too.”

“What a shame for you to bother, Jack!” she said. “Mr. Clifford shall go and make some tea directly. Mr. Rowden, you may take a table out by the fountain--and stay there.”

Clifford, motioning Elliott to take the other end of the Japanese table, backed with it through the hallway and out to the gravel walk, expostulating.

“The sugar is there in that tin box by the model stand,” she said, when he reappeared, “and the extra spoons are lying in a long box on Jack’s big easel.”

When Rowden, reluctantly relinquishing the zitherine, followed Clifford, bearing the cups and alcohol lamp, I raised my head and wiped the dust from my forehead. I believe I swore a little in French. Sweetheart looked startled. She knew more French than I supposed she did.

“What is it, Jack?”

“Mais--rien, ça m’embête--cette espèce de malle--”

“Then why won’t you let me help you, Jack? I can at least put in my gowns.”

“But I must pack my colour box first, and the gun case, and the box of reels, and the pastel case, and our shooting boots, and the water-colour box, and the cartridge belt, and your golf shoes, and--”

“O dear!” said Sweetheart with a shudder.

I stood up and scowled at the trunk.

“To look at you, Jack,” murmured Sweetheart, “one might think you unhappy.”

Unhappy! At the thought our eyes met across the table.

“Unhappy!” I whispered.

Then Clifford came stumbling in, wearing a pair of Joseph’s sabots, and, imitating that faithful domestic in voice and manner, invited us to tea under the lilacs and almond blossoms.

“In a moment,” cried Sweetheart impatiently. “Go and pour the tea.”

Clifford looked aghast. “No, no!” he cried; “it’s impossible--I won’t believe that you two are deliberately getting rid of me so you can be alone to spoon! And your honeymoon already a year old, and--”

Sweetheart frowned, and tapped her foot.

Clifford retired indignant.

Then she raised her eyes to mine, and a delicate colour stained her cheeks and neck.

“Yes,” I said, “we have been married nearly a year, Sweetheart.”

We looked at our white shadows on the floor.