Part 21 (1/2)

'That'll do both for weather and light, but not for yourself. How glad I am to see you! Are you just going?'

'Yes.'

'I have scarcely been here half-a-dozen times since I came back to London.'

'But you are writing still?'

'Oh yes! But I draw upon my genius, and my stores of observation, and the living world.'

Marian received her vouchers for the volumes, and turned to face Jasper again. There was a smile on her lips.

'The fog is terrible,' Milvain went on. 'How do you get home?'

'By omnibus from Tottenham Court Road.'

'Then do let me go a part of the way with you. I live in Mornington Road--up yonder, you know. I have only just come in to waste half an hour, and after all I think I should be better at home. Your father is all right, I hope?'

'He is not quite well.'

'I'm sorry to hear that. You are not exactly up to the mark, either.

What weather! What a place to live in, this London, in winter! It would be a little better down at Finden.'

'A good deal better, I should think. If the weather were bad, it would be bad in a natural way; but this is artificial misery.'

'I don't let it affect me much,' said Milvain. 'Just of late I have been in remarkably good spirits. I'm doing a lot of work. No end of work--more than I've ever done.'

'I am very glad.'

'Where are your out-of-door things? I think there's a ladies' vestry somewhere, isn't there?'

'Oh yes.'

'Then will you go and get ready? I'll wait for you in the hall. But, by-the-bye, I am taking it for granted that you were going alone.'

'I was, quite alone.'

The 'quite' seemed excessive; it made Jasper smile.

'And also,' he added, 'that I shall not annoy you by offering my company?'

'Why should it annoy me?'

'Good!'

Milvain had only to wait a minute or two. He surveyed Marian from head to foot when she appeared--an impertinence as unintentional as that occasionally noticeable in his speech--and smiled approval. They went out into the fog, which was not one of London's densest, but made walking disagreeable enough.

'You have heard from the girls, I think?' Jasper resumed.

'Your sisters? Yes; they have been so kind as to write to me.'