"She is not my sister," said the boy.
The artist—he was an extraordinarily tall young man, with a keen hatchet face, restless brown eyes, and straight auburn hair parted accurately in the middle—considered for a moment, then nodded.
"That's so. It comes out, soon as you talk . . . Well, see here now, we'll start right away. That's how Art hits me—once I take hold of a notion, I must sling in and get going. It's my temperament; and what's Art—right there, please—what's Art, after all, but expressed temperament? You catch the idea? You're the Infant Shakespeare, the youth to fortune and to fame unknown—"
'His listless length at noontide would he stretch'—
"Stretch what you have of it—"
'And pore upon the brook that babbles by.'
"But I don't want you to paint me," rebelled the boy.
"Goodness! Why not?"
For a moment or two Arthur Miles faced the question almost sullenly.
"I don't want my likeness taken," he explained at length.