He went over to Miss Mell.
“Your work,” he said, “is entirely hopeless. And you don’t care. You’re really the cleverest of the lot. You know what you’re doing. You’re earning a living.... But I can’t look at it. It’s too obscene.”
She smiled good-humouredly, without looking up from the picture of a small boy and a big package of coffee “For My Mudder.”
“And you,” he said to Enid. “You’re so infernally puffed up with pride in your work and your fine body that you can’t see the truth. Nothing but crazy visions. What you ought to be is an artist’s model. That is what you were intended for.”
“That’s a part that wouldn’t suit you very well,” she answered, looking at his great, ungainly bulk.
“Cheap!” he said. “Cheap wit. Cheap impudence. My skeleton is largely covered with fat, which is a source of great discomfort to me. And it seems humourous to you. Very well; that is Enid. Now this sweet child, Rosaleen, is promising. She is innocent, naïve. She sees what is, because she is rather too stupid to imagine what is not. I am going to teach her.”
“To see what is not, I suppose,” said Enid. “Go ahead, then. Of course you’ll spoil her. She was useful before. She used to cook the meals and go to market and sweep and mend our clothes. Now she’ll want to draw.”
“So she shall draw! She shall be my Galatea. I shall create an artist with my own breath.”
He sat down beside the alarmed and confused Rosaleen and began to instruct her. He was wonderful. He explained with exquisite lucidity; he was patient, he was kind. But Rosaleen was too nervous to profit by his teaching. Her hand trembled pitiably.
“Very well, then, my dear,” he said, kindly, “I’ll wait until you’re more used to me. But in the meantime, don’t touch a pencil. Every stroke you draw is a step on the road to perdition.”