“Make one!”      

       “Humph!”      

       Harz poised his brush, as though it were a spear:     

       “A man must do the best in him. If he has to suffer—let him!”      

       Dawney stretched his large soft body; a calculating look had come into his eyes.     

       “You're a tough little man!” he said.     

       “I've had to be tough.”      

       Dawney rose; tobacco smoke was wreathed round his unruffled hair.     

       “Touching Villa Rubein,” he said, “shall I call for you? It's a mixed household, English mostly—very decent people.”      

       “No, thank you. I shall be painting all day. Haven't time to know the sort of people who expect one to change one's clothes.”      

       “As you like; ta-to!” And, puffing out his chest, Dawney vanished through a blanket looped across the doorway.     

       Harz set a pot of coffee on a spirit-lamp, and cut himself some bread. Through the window the freshness of the morning came; the scent of sap and blossom and young leaves; the scent of earth, and the mountains freed from winter; the new flights and songs of birds; all the odorous, enchanted, restless Spring.     

       There suddenly appeared through the doorway a white rough-haired terrier dog, black-marked about the face, with shaggy tan eyebrows. He sniffed at Harz, showed the whites round his eyes, and uttered a sharp bark. A young voice called:     

       “Scruff! Thou naughty dog!” Light footsteps were heard on the stairs; from the distance a thin, high voice called:     

       “Greta! You mustn't go up there!”      

       A little girl of twelve, with long fair hair under a wide-brimmed hat, slipped in.     

       Her blue eyes opened wide, her face flushed up. That face was not regular;       

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