"He! he!" giggled Prudence. "Wown't tie up me, I know. 'Cos if you was to do that you couldn't paint me. See?" She gurgled with triumph.
"And now," said Baffin, "it is time to leave off playing. Sit up, like a good girl, and keep quiet. Get rid of that bull's-eye."
"Yes," said Prudence. And the lollipop was "got rid of" of by a simple and effective means. "I should laugh if someone was to tread on it," observed Prudence. "If my mother was to see—— Oo-er, Mr. Baffin, down't 'oller at me, please, Mr. Baffin. I will be good, I will; on'y, if you look like that I shall cry, 'Cos you frighten me."
Silence reigned for a little space, whilst Prudence, with clenched hands, maintained an attitude of strenuous repose. Baffin's actions alternated between brief and seemingly motiveless dabs at his canvas, and a critical inspection of his model, for the purposes of which he spread out his legs and wagged his head—slowly and pensively, from side to side—like an elderly cockerel surveying the domestic landscape. This proceeding terminated in a sigh that had all the eloquence of a shout, and Baffin pounced, as it were, upon his canvas.
Prudence selected this moment in which to throw up both her hands, and wail with sorrow. "Ooh," she moaned, "ooh, I am a bad gel, I am. Ooh, what will my mother say when I go 'ome? She give me a letter to powst, she did, an' I never powsted it, an' it's a letter for our landlord, it is, an' I promised faithful to put it into the first box I come to. An' now I've fogot it, I 'ave, an' my mother 'll be cross. An' I love my mother, I do, an' she's got a bad place on her arm, an' I am a bad, wicked gel to tease an' trouble 'er, I am. Oo-er, I must get up and go out, Mr. Baffin. I must, 'cause I fogot to powst my mother's letter."
Baffin did the philosophic thing: put away his canvas, and put on the kettle, and invited his sitter to unsit and rejoice. That young person responded to this invitation by sitting wonderfully silent—strangely still—for ten minutes. It was only at the very end of this unique performance that we perceived her to be shedding tears. Real tears, this time.
It was possible in that moment to realise that Prudence had passed her twenty-second year. Baffin touched her shoulder, and she shrank from him and shuddered. She spoke, and her voice was the voice of a woman. "Lemme alone: lemme alone. You donnow what a un'eppy gel I am. You—you——"
It finished in a gurgle.
Then, with the laudable motive of clearing the air, Baffin referred in a tone of banter to the still visible presence of red flannel. The success of his experiment amazed us both. All in a moment the whims and capers of infancy possessed her again, and she succumbed to an ecstasy of wriggles.
"Ooh, 'ere, 'ere, Mr. Baffin; 'ere, I say, what do you think some man 'as done? Some man 'as sent me a—a something: a underneath something, all white. Yes, reely!"