"It depends, my dear boy, on whether you ask me if I prefer Phryne or Priscilla—pagan or puritan; both are interesting types, and the contrast can be very effectually studied here in your picture and your model."
"Yet Priscilla lends herself wonderfully to be interpreted as Phryne."
"Or, rather, it is wonderful that you should have imagined Manon into that face."
In the next rest, when Carrington had gone, Miss Jones said:
"Mr. Carrington walked home with me yesterday. Papa thinks rather highly of him. It is a pity his life should be so pointless."
It began to be borne in upon me that Miss Jones had painfully serious ethical convictions.
"I suppose you mean from the socialistic standpoint," I said.
"Oh, no—not at all; I am not a socialist. Papa and I agree to differ upon that as upon many other questions. Socialism, I think, tends to revolt and license."
I did not pursue the subject of Carrington's pointlessness nor proffer a plea for socialism. I was beginning to wince rather before Miss Jones's frankness.
On the following day she again came and stood before my picture.