At last he said: “You know, I’m simply
dead. I don’t think I can absorb anything
more profitably. Let’s go and sit down on
one of the benches.”
“It’s better not to take too much art
at a time,” Miss Price answered.
When they got outside he thanked her warmly for the
trouble she had taken.
“Oh, that’s all right,” she said,
a little ungraciously. “I do it because
I enjoy it. We’ll go to the Louvre tomorrow
if you like, and then I’ll take you to Durand-Ruel’s.”
“You’re really awfully good to me.”
“You don’t think me such a beast as the
most of them do.”
“I don’t,” he smiled.
“They think they’ll drive me away from
the studio; but they won’t; I shall stay there
just exactly as long as it suits me. All that
this morning, it was Lucy Otter’s doing, I know
it was. She always has hated me. She thought
after that I’d take myself off. I daresay
she’d like me to go. She’s afraid
I know too much about her.”
Miss Price told him a long, involved story, which
made out that Mrs. Otter, a humdrum and respectable
little person, had scabrous intrigues. Then she
talked of Ruth Chalice, the girl whom Foinet had praised
that morning.
“She’s been with every one of the fellows
at the studio. She’s nothing better than
a street-walker. And she’s dirty. She
hasn’t had a bath for a month. I know it
for a fact.”
Philip listened uncomfortably. He had heard already
that various rumours were in circulation about Miss
Chalice; but it was ridiculous to suppose that Mrs.
Otter, living with her mother, was anything but rigidly
virtuous. The woman walking by his side with her
malignant lying positively horrified him.
“I don’t care what they say. I shall
go on just the same. I know I’ve got it
in me. I feel I’m an artist. I’d
sooner kill myself than give it up. Oh, I shan’t
be the first they’ve all laughed at in the schools
and then he’s turned out the only genius of
the lot. Art’s the only thing I care for,
I’m willing to give my whole life to it.
It’s only a question of sticking to it and pegging
away”
She found discreditable motives for everyone who would
not take her at her own estimate of herself.
She detested Clutton. She told Philip that his
friend had no talent really; it was just flashy and
superficial; he couldn’t compose a figure to
save his life. And Lawson:
“Little beast, with his red hair and his freckles.
He’s so afraid of Foinet that he won’t
let him see his work. After all, I don’t
funk it, do I? I don’t care what Foinet
says to me, I know I’m a real artist.”
They reached the street in which she lived, and with
a sigh of relief Philip left her.
But notwithstanding when Miss Price on the following
Sunday offered to take him to the Louvre Philip accepted.
She showed him Mona Lisa. He looked at it with
a slight feeling of disappointment, but he had read
till he knew by heart the jewelled words with which
Walter Pater has added beauty to the most famous picture
in the world; and these now he repeated to Miss Price.
