Barnabas sat down and waited. Every now and then he looked at the child with a puzzled expression in his eyes. Suddenly he threw back his head. He very nearly whistled. Something that had eluded him had been discovered.
The egg and the story were finished. There came a silence.
The child's eyes wandered round the studio. They lighted on the faded green dress lying on the model stand. A queer little look of sadness that should be foreign to a child's face crept back into her eyes.
She slid down from her chair, and stood solemnly before Miss Mason.
"I tank you bof ver' much," she said, with a quaint air of courtesy. "But now I put on zem tings and go back to Mrs. 'iggins."
She smiled a brave little smile, sadder than any tears or protests.
Barnabas felt a sudden odd grip at his throat. Miss Mason spoke suddenly and firmly.
"No," she said, "you are not going back to Mrs. Higgins."
The child looked at her with wondering eyes.
"That you are going to stay here with me," said Miss Mason decisively. "Barnabas, you must help me to arrange it."
"Oh!" she cried, with a laugh that held a sob, "I tink I like dat Princess. She sleep and sleep, and she wake up when ze Prince kiss her, and ze world all ver' 'appy. And I so 'appy just all ze same, wisout no Prince kiss me."
And then Barnabas did a queer thing. He put his arm round the child and kissed her lips.
Barely half an hour after Miss Mason's sudden decision Barnabas set out for a small and rather unwholesome street somewhere in the direction of the World's End. It was given by Pippa as the locality in which Mrs. Higgins had her residence.
It was not entirely on Miss Mason's account that Barnabas was anxious to make further enquiries regarding the child. As he walked along the King's Road, with its pavement slippery and muddy from the feet of many passers-by, his mind travelled back to memories which Pippa's face had awakened in him.
They were memories some fourteen or fifteen years old, of the time when he was a young art student. A scene he had almost forgotten came clearly back to him. He saw a big class-room full of easels and men working and smoking. He saw himself, very young, very full of enthusiasm, yet at the moment very full of despair. He saw himself looking with disgust at his own somewhat feeble attempt to reproduce on canvas the figure of the nude model who was standing on the platform before him. He saw the master coming near, and heard his words. They were few but sarcastic. He had felt that the whole room was listening to them. First an insane desire to sink into the floor had overwhelmed him, then a feeling that he had better take his canvas and brushes and fling them into the river. It had been mere presumption on his part to dream of art as a career. He had seen the other figures in the room through a kind of hazy blur. The voice of the master as he went from easel to easel had come to him as through cotton-wool. He did not notice that almost equally sarcastic remarks were being levelled at the other canvases, and were being received by their owners with indifference or with good-humoured laughter. He had heard the door close presently as the master left the room. Then he heard a voice at his elbow--a curiously musical voice: