“I suppose you mean to go on with this work, don’t you? Posing, studio jobs, and so on?”
Apollos opened wide eyes. “Not I, sir! For me, it’s only a pis-aller, if you’ll excuse my saying so. Faute de mieux, you know.”
I was astonished, for I had no idea that Apollos knew a word of French, even the tags he had just used. I thought I would be jocose.
“What are you going to do, then? Teach languages?”
“I’ve tried that,” replied the best model I ever saw, “but I found it unsatisfactory. You see my mother was French, born in Strasbourg. So while she lived, we always spoke the three languages at home, meal-times; English for breakfast, German for dinner, and French for supper. Father liked it so, and we boys couldn’t look back on a time when it wasn’t so. I had the French conversation classes for two terms at the Elmdale High School, and I got on fine until one of the trustees wanted the job for his wife’s sister. So he went ahead and found out that I was a minor, and had me fired.”
“What a shame!”
“Why, no, it didn’t matter much. If I might rest this elbow just a moment, it seems a bit dead—I meant to quit, anyway. There was nothing in it for me, it wasn’t leading to anything I wanted.”
“Well, what was it you wanted?”
Apollos made no answer other than that slow blush of his, swarming all over his face and finally demobilizing in his ears. For a moment, his whole figure had an expression that would have been wistful in a smaller lad; even as it was, there was something very touching about it. I could only hope that his ambition, however humble, was at least honorable. I reminded myself that I must not expect, in a Canadian boy, the same lofty impulses that would quicken the blood of a Signer’s descendant.