Miss Mell was at work on an oil painting representing a white tiled bathroom in which sat a heavenly fair young mother undressing a baby on her lap, while near her were playing two misty, wistful little children in bathgowns. In the air, over their heads, was a huge tin of talcum powder, and beneath the picture were the words—“THAT COM’FY, SILKY, CUDDLY FEELING WHICH ONLY FEATHERBLO POWDER CAN GIVE.”
It was an order; she had enough commissions ahead to keep her busy for months. She made it her business to suit her clients and their public; if she had any tastes of her own, she set them aside. She had good sense and shrewdness and no illusions of her own greatness. She wished to earn a living by drawing, because she was fond of it and did it fairly well. She never used the word “Art,” never expressed an aesthetic opinion. The advertising agency for which she did most of her work considered her in all things perfect and especially created to fill their wants.
Miss Bainbridge was stippling the background of a little pen and ink sketch—a bizarre thing which she was going to try on a brand new art magazine. It was a woman, nude except for an immense black cloak sprinkled with white stars which floated from her shoulders. She stood alone on an immense stage with a background of black dots; and before and below her was a swimming sea of eyes. She called it “Failure.”
Rosaleen too was working, but neither contentedly nor successfully. The more she saw of the others, the less she thought of herself. They worked with such industry, hour after hour. They didn’t seem to have the slightest trace of her fatal desire for distraction. After she had been drawing for an hour or so, she always became intolerably restless, so that even washing dishes was a relief.... By the side of Enid Bainbridge she felt as some poor little clergyman, struggling incessantly to feed and clothe his family, sick with cares and worries of this world, might feel by the side of Saint Paul. Enid worshipped her god with a single heart. Not for money, not for praise, not for any conceivable reward, would she do anything but her best. Even her ruthlessness, her selfishness, had in them something sublime. She was the priestess, sacrificing all things on her altar. Rosaleen, while disagreeing with her as to the relative importance of art in life, nevertheless venerated her devotion.
She wanted very much to ask their opinion of the design she had just made, but she didn’t venture to interrupt them. She regarded them covertly; Miss Mell in her gingham apron, with her calm, bespectacled face cheerfully intent on her painting; Enid Bainbridge bending over her drawing with desperate intensity.... She had beautiful hair, Rosaleen observed, and she knew how to dress it.
She got up and crossed the room, very quietly, so as not to shake the floor, and sat down before the hearth to bait a mouse-trap. The place was overrun with mice; they had disturbed her horribly the night before.
And suddenly the industrious silence was broken by a tremendous knock at the door.
“Come in!” called Miss Mell, in her cheerful, encouraging voice.
The door opened, so widely that it slammed against the wall, and in walked an enormously fat man, with a swarthy face, an upturned mustache and a monocle dangling by a broad black ribbon. He was dressed with extreme care, with well-creased trousers, a fastidious necktie, and fawn-coloured spats; but the greater part of him was enveloped in a flowing grey linen smock.
They all stared at him, astonished; he was so extraordinary. He stared at them.