"People are to be envied or pitied," he said aloud, "not for their
circumstances, but for their temperaments."
Edith looked up inquiringly. He went round to where she was sitting,
smiling to think how far she must be from divining his thought.
"I stayed at the club too late last night," he said, stooping to kiss
her smooth white forehead in an unenthusiastic, habitual way which
always stung her. "Some of the fellows insisted upon my playing poker,
and I got so excited that I didn't sleep when I did get to bed."
Edith sighed, but she made no useless remonstrances.
Walking down to his studio, carefully dressed, faultlessly booted and
gloved, and, as Tom Bently was accustomed to say, "too confoundedly
well groomed for an artist," Fenton tried in vain to determine how he
should manage the important conversation with Mr. Hubbard. He had
racked his brains in the night in vain attempts to solve this problem,
but in the end he was forced to leave everything for chance or
circumstances to decide.
When Stewart Hubbard sat before him, Fenton was conscious of a tingling
excitement in every vein, but outwardly he was only the more calm. A
close observer might have noticed a nervous quickness in his movements,
and a certain shrillness in his voice, but the sitter gave no heed to
these tokens, which he would have regarded as of no importance had he
seen them.
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