May meanwhile had taken Mr. Thomas out for his airing, had had tea alone, and was feeling a little ill-used. Maud had been quite right. Tom, she thought, ought to have come away with her. Why? Well, for no reason except the very important one that he wanted to stop. Then it occurred to her that a candid enemy might say she was in danger of becoming jealous of Maud, and the thought of that made her quite angry. But no one had suggested it except herself.
In Tom’s mind the vision of Isaac was supplanted by other thoughts. He wondered whether he had said too much, whether by any chance Maud could guess his trouble, for he knew she was skilful at reading between the lines, and on his way down Oxford Street he determined to write her a line in order to counteract any such undesirable possibility.
May was not in the drawing-room when he got in, and taking up a postcard--for there was nothing private in what he meant to say--he wrote: “I am not _blasé_ at all. Don’t think I am.”
He directed it, and leaving it with two or three others for the post, went to see if May was in yet. He found her with Mr. Thomas, who was a little fractious, and who, on Tom’s entrance, began yelling in a way that shouted volumes for his lungs and larynx. Tom bore it for a minute or two, but as it did not subside he shouted out to May across the tumult--
“I’ve only just come in, and if I stop here I shall be deafened. I shall be in the studio till dinner.”
Mr. Thomas condescended to go to sleep after a quarter of an hour or so, and May went to the drawing-room. Tom’s post-card was lying address downwards, and not thinking what she was doing she read it. It was quite natural and innocent to see to whom he was writing, but when she saw the address she felt a little more ill-used than before.
About a week after this, Maud Wrexham came to see them in Bloomsbury. May was out, and Tom was in despair because the breezy model had taken it into her head to demand a higher wage for standing, and Tom could not afford either to pay her more, or to part with her. He had engaged her till the end of the week at the higher rate, but he knew he could not continue to do so indefinitely. He was walking up and down the studio when Maud was sloppily announced by the slip-shod maid--wondering what on earth was to be done.