"My dear chap, I'm awfully sorry," apologized Ronnie, and, without waiting, hurried from the studio. "Whatever's the matter?" asked Jenny, awakened by this brief interview. "I wish people wouldn't come in and interrupt me when I'm at work," Maurice grumbled. "It's frightfully inconsiderate. You don't want to look at damned paintings when you're working in another medium." "Who were they of?" "You, of course." "Why didn't he show them to me?" "Because I jumped down his throat, I suppose." "Whatever for?" "Can't you understand how annoying it must be to have to look at another person's treatment of your subject?" "I think it was very nasty of you not to let him show me the pictures." "You seem more interested in Ronnie's work than in mine." "Well, you never let me look at what you've done." "It isn't finished yet." "You can be horrid." "Look here, Jenny, for goodness' sake don't start criticising me. I can't stand it. I never could. I've noticed lately you've taken to it." "Oh, I've not." "Well, you give me that impression." Jenny rose from the cushions and, running her hands down the tarlatan till it regained its buoyancy, she moved slowly across to Maurice's side. "Kiss me, you silly old thing, and don't say any more unkind things, because they make me unhappy." Maurice could not be disdainful of her as, leaning over him, she clasped cool hands beneath his chin and with tender kisses uprooted from his forehead a maze of petulant lines. "You little enchanting thing," he murmured. "You disarm me with your witcheries." "And he's not going to be cross any more?" "He can't be. Alas, my sweet one is too sweet." "If you only knew what it meant for Jenny Pearl to be the soppy one." "That's love," Maurice explained. "Is it? I suppose it is." The sunshine of February was extinguished by a drench of rain. March came in with storms of sleet followed by a long stretch of dry easterly gales, when the studio, full of firelight and daffodils, was a pleasant refuge from the gray winds. After Ronnie's visit the statue had been put aside for a while; the lovers spent most of their time in hearth-rug conversations, when Jenny would prattle inconsequently of youthful days and Maurice would build up a wonderful future. Vexatious riddles of conduct were ignored like the acrostics of old newspapers, and Jenny was happier than she had ever been. Her nature had always demanded a great deal from the present. Occurrences the most trivial impressed themselves deeply upon her mind, and it was this zest for the ephemeral which made her recollections of the past so lively. As a natural corollary to this habit of mind, she was profoundly deficient in speculation or foresight. The future exhausted her imagination at once: her intellect gasped long before she reached the prospect of eternity. A month made her brain reel.