“You’re wrong,” she said, after a while. “I’m not that sort—the school marm.... But you did have an idea in that picture of yours. I think you wanted it to be ironic and terrible. And it wasn’t. It was only severe. You missed what you aimed at. But I don’t care about ideas....”
“Keep quiet, sensitive, egotistic, female thing!” said Lawrence Iverson. “Why do you care what I think about you? I don’t care—I couldn’t possibly care—what you thought about me. Now to show you—what mood are you trying to get in your little picture there? Explain it! If it means something, what does it mean? Eh?”
“It’s the sensation of an actress who knows she’s failing——”
“Oh bosh! Oh rot! Oh stale, idiotic futility! So we have here the portrait of a sensation! Well, here is what you want.”
He took Enid by the arm and pulled her to her feet; then he sat down on her chair and began to draw with her pen, in strong, fine, sure lines, the figure of a woman, in a strange attitude, half defiant, half cringing.
“There’s your silly idea,” he said. “Without any black dots or white stripes.... You can’t draw. No woman can. But it’s pretty to see them try. I approve. I approve of you all. Even the trying will give you some faint comprehension of what I accomplish. But now, my dear little souls, put down your work and let us become acquainted!”
II
“Wasn’t he awful?” said Rosaleen, with a sigh of relief, when he had gone.
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Miss Mell. “That’s only his way. He’s really a very well known artist.... What are you laughing at, Enid?”
“At him,” she answered. “And his babyishness. And his airs. Why, he’s crazy about women. You can see that. I’ll have him eating out of my hand in a week or two.”