D'you know what I should like--a chocolate eclair and a
raspberry ice-cream soda with a slice of tangerine in it."
When she had slowly sucked up that beverage, prodding the slice of
tangerine with her straws, they went out and took a cab. On that journey
to her studio, Fiorsen tried to possess himself of her hand, but,
folding her arms across her chest, she said quietly:
"It's very bad manners to take advantage of cabs." And, withdrawing
sullenly into his corner, he watched her askance. Was she playing with
him? Or had she really ceased to care the snap of a finger? It seemed
incredible. The cab, which had been threading the maze of the Soho
streets, stopped. Daphne Wing alighted, proceeded down a narrow passage
to a green door on the right, and, opening it with a latch-key, paused
to say:
"I like it's being in a little sordid street--it takes away all
amateurishness. It wasn't a studio, of course; it was the back part of a
paper-maker's. Any space conquered for art is something, isn't it?" She
led the way up a few green-carpeted stairs, into a large room with a
skylight, whose walls were covered in Japanese silk the colour of yellow
azaleas. Here she stood for a minute without speaking, as though lost in
the beauty of her home: then, pointing to the walls, she said:
"It took me ages, I did it all myself. And look at my little Japanese
trees; aren't they dickies?" Six little dark abortions of trees were
arranged scrupulously on a lofty window-sill, whence the skylight
sloped.
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