"Please, please, _do_ tell us what it is! Suspense is so awful!"
Bruce cocked his head on one side meditatively. "I'll make a stab at it," he acceded, and then paused, while they waited in breathless silence.
"I've taken a studio apartment, and I've got someone to keep house--just for a month--and I'm banking on you all coming to spend that month with me. I want you to have this chance at some outside work," he said to Elinor. "I'm not so keen on this academic work for a steady job. I want you to keep up your life class, of course, but there's a big lot of education lying around in the studios for this short time anyway. I may not be able to offer it to you again, as I'll have to be off as soon as this contract is finished. Will you come?"
Elinor sat looking at him with her eyes shining, and then she drew a quick breath.
"I think it would be perfectly glorious," she said gratefully. "It's wonderful that you should bother with us. I can't thank you----"
"Don't want any thanks," returned Bruce gruffly. "Your aunt would understand it. I'm only beginning to pay my debt to her, and it's going to take a mighty long while, too."
Patricia held out her hand across the cloth. "I can't kiss you, but here's the substitute. You're a _duck_, Bruce Haydon. Where is the studio?"
Bruce laughed in a relieved way. "That's the way to talk, Miss Pat. I'll show it to you as soon as you've all finished. Judy, haven't you anything to say?"
Judith finished dabbling her fingers in the finger-bowl, and wiped them daintily. Then she raised her clear eyes to the expectant company.
"The only thing I'm afraid of is that Mrs. Hudson won't let us go a whole month sooner," she said with the calmness of despair. "I suppose I'll have to stay there all by myself, just because I'm the youngest and not an artist. But I tell you all this--I'm not going to stay alone. I'll get Mrs. Shelly to come in----"
"Good idea, Judy," said Bruce encouragingly. "We'll see what we can do about it. Come along now, we're going to inspect the new premises. You girls get your duds on while I settle up. It's only around the corner, and we'll be there in a jiffy."
They went up in the little box of an elevator, and as they got out, Bruce jingled his keys invitingly.