"I'm afraid there's nothing for it but teaching," she said to herself ruefully. "Everything else I'd like to do needs an expensive training. So does teaching really, to do it properly. I ought to go to college and take a degree if I ever want to get a head-mistressship. I might go as governess to a child like Terry, or perhaps Miss Tatham would keep me on to help with the juniors, but either would be a blind alley and lead to nothing better, if I'm not trained and certificated and all the rest of it. And, oh dear! I don't think I'm cut out for a teacher. Miss Ormerod was right when she said I'd no sense of discipline. I could never make a 'head' like Miss Tatham, so calm and even and unmoved. I'm all nerves and jumps. It isn't my line in the least. Oh, if only I could paint all day long! That's the life! You do, yourself, a thing that you like, instead of forcing unwilling children to do what they don't want. I love the children, and I'd sit painting them for hours and hours, and call them 'sweet little angels', but when I begin to try to teach them they turn into imps. I'm in the wrong box, but there's no help for it, and I suppose I shall just have to worry on doing my incompetent best till the end of the chapter. It's Kismet!"
Meantime, though Lesbia might worry about her future, the summer term went on as usual. There were cricket matches, and tennis tournaments, and an occasional nature ramble to break the monotony of the ordinary grind of work, as well as such side activities as the Photographic Society, and a newly-formed Sketching Club. Lesbia found one advantage in having resigned the prefectship to Kathleen, it gave her Tuesday afternoons free. Formerly she had been obliged to superintend a juniors' cricket practice, but now she could spend the time at her beloved painting in the studio. As it was a "Self Expression" afternoon she was under no tuition, but might carry out any artistic scheme she wished. By special leave she borrowed Gwennie Rogers, who had strained her knee and might not play cricket, and, posing the child as model, began to paint a study of her head in oils. Gwennie was very pretty, with an apple-blossom complexion and fluffy fair hair, and the episode of the gate room had switched her adoration of Lesbia to a point which made her sit still for half an hour at a stretch without moving, a quality in a model which is absolutely invaluable.
Lesbia, whose art victims generally fidgeted and twisted their heads and never kept the same position for more than two minutes together, painted away with the utmost satisfaction. The studio was quiet, and she seemed able to give her whole attention to her subject. She mixed a very delicate grey for the shades on Gwennie's face, and put a dull blue background behind her fair hair. She recalled all the hints Mr. Stockton had given her when she had attempted Terry's portrait, and tried to reproduce some of the artistic effects which she had watched his clever fingers perform. The doing of it was sheer joy. She worked away in a sort of happy dream, almost oblivious of her surroundings. She hardly noticed when the door opened and someone entered the studio. She was startled at last by hearing Miss Tatham's voice behind her. Instantly the spell broke. She laid down her palette and brushes, and Gwennie moved her pose.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Lesbia," said Miss Tatham. "I've brought a gentleman—a great artist—to see our studio. This is one of our elder pupils, Mr. Moxon. She's painting this afternoon quite on her own account. We have no life class here, so she's just trying her 'prentice hand at a sketch of one of her schoolfellows. It's all good practice."
Mr. Moxon, from a height of six feet two, looked down at the canvas on Lesbia's easel.
"It's a very nice study," he remarked. "She evidently has the gift of catching a likeness. It really is a most happy little portrait. The chin is charmingly modelled, and she has captured just the roguish expression of the original. Don't touch it again" (speaking to Lesbia). "It's exactly right as it is. You'll probably spoil it if you try to do any more to it. I hope you're going on with art?"
"I'm afraid not." Lesbia's voice was sad.
"What a thousand pities! You ought to go and study in Paris, at Mesurier's studio. He's the coming man! Tell your people to send you. You'd get on very well there. Tell them I say so."
Mr. Moxon moved on, following Miss Tatham, to inspect other details in the school. He left Lesbia in a ferment. That an artist—and a great artist too—should have condescended to praise her work, and encourage her to go on, raised her to the clouds. Oh, if only she could take this kind advice and go to Paris to study! But, alas! those things were for fortunate girls who had friends who could afford to send them abroad, not for luckless people like herself, who were fated to toil away at humdrum occupations. It was no use mourning over what could not be helped, a course at a Paris studio was as impossible as a tour round the world, and there was not the slightest prospect of it ever coming within her reach. She almost wished he had never mentioned the dazzling idea, it was too tantalizing to be obliged to turn her back upon it.
Though Lesbia might have to forgo many beautiful art dreams, she made the best at any rate of the opportunities which Kingfield High School offered to her. Miss Joyce had instituted a sketching class for the summer term, and took about half a dozen of the girls out with her on Friday afternoons. At first they went by train into the country, but she found the journey wasted so much time, going and returning, that she looked about for some pretty bit near at hand, which would be within their powers, and finally fixed on Pilgrims' Inn yard. It was a picturesque old court, and had the advantage of being quiet. As it was private ground, no tiresome urchins from the street might stray in and molest them, and no passers-by would stop to stand and watch their work, a species of persecution from which they had suffered considerably in country villages. The old black-and-white house, with its gables and mullioned windows, its nail-studded doors, its gallery, and the benches alongside the entrance, made several excellent subjects, and afforded points of view for all her students. They settled themselves on their camp-stools, unfolded their sketching-easels, and were soon busy with pencil or charcoal, blocking in the main outlines of their prospective pictures.