The chances were that he was not in a humor for working.  He would sit down in an easy-chair and kick his heels on the floor for a time, watching perhaps the sunlight come in through the upper part of the windows and paint yellow squares on the opposite wall.  Then he would go out and lock the door behind him, leaving no message whatever for those crowds of importunate dealers who, as Sheila fancied, were besieging him with offers in one hand and purses of gold in the other.

One morning, after she had been indoors for two or three days, and had grown hopelessly tired of the monotony of watching that sunlit square, she was filled with an unconquerable longing to go away, for however brief a space, from the sight of houses.  The morning was sweet and clear and bright, white clouds were slowly crossing a fair blue sky, and a fresh and cool breeze was blowing in at the open French windows.

“Bras,” she said, going down stairs and out into the small garden, “we are going into the country.”

The great deer-hound seemed to know, and rose and came to her with great gravity, while she clasped on the leash.  He was no frisky animal to show his delight by yelping and gamboling, but he laid his long nose in her hand, and slowly wagged the down-drooping curve of his shaggy tail; and then he placidly walked by her side up into the hall, where he stood awaiting her.

She would go along and beg of her husband to leave his work for a day and go with her for a walk down to Richmond Park.  She had often heard Mr. Ingram speak of walking down, and she remembered that much of the road was pretty.  Why should not her husband have one holiday?

“It is such a shame,” she had said to him that morning as he left, “that you will be going into that gloomy place, with its bare walls and chairs, and the windows so that you cannot see out of them!”

“I must get some work done somehow, Sheila,” he said, although he did not tell her that he had not finished a picture since his marriage.

“I wish I could do some of it for you,” she said.

“You!  All the work you’re good for is catching fish and feeding ducks and planting things in gardens.  Why don’t you come down and feed the ducks in the Serpentine?”

“I should like to do that,” she answered.  “I will go any day with you.”

“Well,” he said, “you see, I don’t know until I get along to the studio whether I can get away for the fore-noon; and then if I were to come back here, you would have little or no time to dress.  Good-bye, Sheila.”

“Good-bye,” she had said to him, giving up the Serpentine without much regret.

But the forenoon had turned out so delightful that she thought she would go along to the studio, and hale him out of that gaunt and dingy apartment.  She should take him away from town:  therefore she might put on that rough blue dress in which she used to go boating in Loch Roag.  She had lately smartened it up a bit with some white braid, and she hoped he would approve.