I interrupted her to say that no studied compliment could ever have pleased that painter so much as her hurried slip; but she didn’t want to hear me; she wanted to talk and tell.
They had slept in the studio, in a little gallery up a ladder, where there was also a bathroom. They had cooked their own breakfast, but had gone out for other meals. I had no idea what Vera’s coffee was like! And her cups and saucers and plates: all blue and white, from Portugal: it cost—well, I’d never guess how cheap it was.
I asked her if she had called on her father.
“No”
“Oughtn’t you to have done so?”
“I suppose I ought,” she answered, “but—well, as a maffact, he would probably have disapproved of Chelsea and made me stay with him. For another reason, I didn’t really think he wanted to see me. We’ve very little in common, you know, Dombeen.”
“It’s a wise child who knows when she doesn’t want her father to know she’s in town,” I said. “I’m afraid you’re right,” I added: “you haven’t much in common. But you oughtn’t to presume on that, ought you?”
“Why not?” she asked, and upon my word, I couldn’t reply. Why should children be dutiful any more than their parents?
If Eustace took no interest in Rose, why should Rose take interest in him? Logically, it is the older who should set the example: the more mature, the person who is responsible for the child’s existence. I doubt very much if there is any natural affinity between parents and children: pride of ownership on the one side and dependence on the other leads to the creation of a bond. Remove babies at birth and do not let them meet their mothers again until they are grown up, and (in spite of the romantic and sentimental novelists) I doubt if there would be any natural recognition, any calling of the deeps.
Vera, Rose went on, had done a little work—not much—and then they had gone out to visit other studios, where Vera’s friends lived. I could have no idea how jolly they all were. People talked about the jealousy of artists, but for her part she didn’t believe a word of it. There they were, all so keen and simple, wearing the most delightful old clothes, pleased to see each other, pleased to praise each other’s work—genuinely, too—absolutely genuinely—and then directly it was too dark to go on, or they didn’t feel in the mood, off they went to dinner at one of the Soho places, and then they either talked about painting, ever so interestingly, or danced or sang. It was the most wonderful life.