"If it's only a painter," he said with a chuckle, "ten to one we
get as good a welcome as we want."
"I thought painters were principally poor," said Stubbs.
"Ah!" cried Leon, "you do not know the world as I do. The poorer
the better for us!"
And the trio advanced into the turnip-field.
The light was in the ground floor; as one window was brightly
illuminated and two others more faintly, it might be supposed that
there was a single lamp in one corner of a large apartment; and a
certain tremulousness and temporary dwindling showed that a live
fire contributed to the effect. The sound of a voice now became
audible; and the trespassers paused to listen. It was pitched in a
high, angry key, but had still a good, full, and masculine note in
it. The utterance was voluble, too voluble even to be quite
distinct; a stream of words, rising and falling, with ever and
again a phrase thrown out by itself, as if the speaker reckoned on
its virtue.
Suddenly another voice joined in. This time it was a woman's; and
if the man were angry, the woman was incensed to the degree of
fury. There was that absolutely blank composure known to suffering
males; that colourless unnatural speech which shows a spirit
accurately balanced between homicide and hysterics; the tone in
which the best of women sometimes utter words worse than death to
those most dear to them. If Abstract Bones-and-Sepulchre were to
be endowed with the gift of speech, thus, and not otherwise, would
it discourse.
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