"There's no 'of course' about it, dear," said Frank; "but I feel as if I couldn't paint to-day."
"How dreadfully lazy you are!" said Margery, inconsistently. "You'd never do anything if it wasn't for me. But you must promise to work very hard and sensibly to-morrow and next day, and when I come back I shall expect to see it more than half finished."
"Sensibly!" said Frank, impatiently; "there is no such thing. All good work is done in a sort of madness or somnambulism—I don't know which. Everything worth doing is done by men possessed of demons."
"The demon of crossness seems to have haunted you this morning," said Margery. "But you needn't make yourself crosser than is consistent with truth."
"But supposing I can't paint it in any other way than what you saw this morning?" asked Frank. "What am I to do, then?"
"There! Now you are asking my advice," said Margery, triumphantly, "although you always insist that I know nothing about art. Why, of course, you must paint it as you see it. You are forever saying that yourself."
"Well, you won't like it," said Frank.
"If you'll promise to eat your breakfast at nine and your lunch at two, and not work more than seven hours a day and go out not less than three, I will chance it. Mr. Armitage was so right when he said that good digestion was half the artistic sense."
"And the other half is bad dreams," said Frank.
"No; if you have good digestion, you don't have bad dreams."