It did not take long to make Laurie’s preparations for this sudden change. He pushed them on with a certain feverish haste, glad to occupy himself, and eager to put himself at a distance from the house he could no longer go to as a privileged and perpetual guest. Somehow Charlotte Street, though it had two ends like other streets, seemed to converge from both upon the Square. It suggested the Square every time he looked out upon it; indeed, all roads led to that door which was shut upon him, which he knew must be shut. But he had not gone back to hear of the extraordinary barricade raised by the padrona against the world in general. Laurie had nobody to consult,--nothing to detain him now. He did not even see one of the ‘set’ for more than a week, during which all his preparations were made. The day on which by chance he met Suffolk in the street was ten days later, when everything was settled. Suffolk stopped eagerly, and turned with him, and took his arm.
‘What has become of you?’ he said; ‘and what did you mean by sending me that canvas? After all, I wish you had gone on with it. We waited, thinking you were coming to explain; and I have called twice, but you were always out; and you look like a ghost,--what does it mean?’
‘It don’t mean anything,’ said Laurie, with as gay a look as he could muster, ‘but that I’m off to Rome to-morrow; where, you’ll allow, a man cannot carry canvases with him measuring ten feet by six. I meant to have come to bid you good-bye to-night.’
‘Off to Rome!’ cried Suffolk, amazed, ‘without a word of warning? Why, nobody knows of it, eh? not the padrona, nor any of us? What do you mean, stealing a march upon your friends like this?’
‘My friends won’t mind it much,’ said Laurie. ‘No; I didn’t mean that. I should like you to miss me. I rather grudge going, indeed, till I know how they’ve hung the Saxon Maiden----’
‘Oh, confound the Saxon Maiden!’ said Suffolk; ‘it is you I want to know about, running off like this without a word. It is not anything that has happened, Laurie?’
‘What could happen?’ said Laurie, with a forced smile. ‘The fact is I am doing nothing here. You all set upon me, you know, about that picture; and I must do something. It is no use ignoring the fact. I am going in for our old work in the Via Felice. And I shall be in time for the Holy Week,--it is so late this year;’ he said, with a half laugh, at his own vain attempt at deception,--quite vain, as he could see, in Suffolk’s eyes.