Mr. Roseveldt had a horror of entrusting funds to young girls with no limitation of the way in which they were to be spent; he felt that in looking over the shop-keeper’s accounts he knew exactly how much Milly expended, and for what the money went. But his plan was a mistaken one; and the perfect freedom which Adelaide enjoyed was training her in a sense of responsibility, while Milly was becoming unscrupulous as to waste, where waste was encouraged, and frequently ordered a coupé when the street car would have done just as well, or rang for a messenger to save a postage stamp.
Winnie and I, the two poorer girls, were the ones who usually had money in the safe. Winnie received a moderate allowance from her father outside of her tuition, which he sent directly to Madame. As soon as the cheque arrived, she cashed it and placed the new, crisp bills in separate envelopes labelled, “Personal expenses,” “Charity.” She was very generous, but she had a horror of debt, and she never expended the funds in the latter envelope until she had received another remittance. As Winnie abhorred sweets, and would rather any day have gone to the dentist’s than the dressmaker’s, and as she had a supreme contempt for display of any kind, the charity envelope was always full, and she had usually a comfortable margin in personal expenditure to lend or bestow on others. Winnie had always been generous, but this quality of foresight had only come to her during the past year in her work as a member of the finance committee of the Home of the Elder Brother.
My own case was different from that of the others. My father was a Long Island farmer, and my allowance, though meagre as related to my necessities, was liberal when compared with his own income. Miss Sartoris, Madame’s former drawing teacher, had boarded with us one summer, during which I had sketched with her, and she had persuaded father that I possessed a talent for art and had taken me back with her to Madame’s. So far I had easily led all the art students, and my studies, although abounding in faults, presumptuous and immature, were considered by the school as something quite remarkable. During the past summer a young man of engaging address, and otherwise irreproachable honesty, had stolen our beloved teacher, and Miss Sartoris, now Mrs. Stillman, was known to Madame’s no more. When the school reorganized in the fall, Madame engaged me to take charge of the art department, temporarily, until she could provide herself with a more competent instructor. We had a small, crowded studio, with a poor light, but the class was large. I did the best I could, but we sorely needed ampler accommodations, and a head whose ability in his profession should be unquestioned. Both were now provided. Carrington Waite was a young artist fresh from the École des Beaux Arts at Paris, and he brought to us the training traditions of the schools, and the latest European ideas in art.
There were very few girls in the school sufficiently advanced to understand his instruction, but they flocked into the studio and listened with undisguised admiration to words that might as well have been uttered in an unknown tongue. Poor little Milly gazed at him in a rapt, adoring way, without ever comprehending what he said. The tears came to her eyes and rolled swiftly down her cheeks when he told her that it was manifestly absurd to draw a full face seen from the front with its nose in profile, but she smiled a brave little quiver of a smile while he reviled her work, and thanked him as though he had uttered the most fulsome compliments.
Even Winnie had felt the wave of influence and joined the class in spite of her assertion that she had no taste for art and never wished to see Professor Waite again. Only Adelaide held firmly out and would none of him. Winnie was not at all afraid of the Professor, and seemed to devote herself especially to making his life miserable. When he informed her that she must join the “preparatory antique” section and draw in charcoal, she calmly explained that she “perfectly loathed” casts, and she had purchased an outfit of oil paints and intended to devote herself at once to color. Strange to say, Professor Waite humored her and gave her some of his landscape studies to copy. She was never contented with reproducing these faithfully, but always “improved” upon them, as she audaciously expressed it.
It was a common thing for Professor Waite to remark, when he sat down before Winnie’s easel, “Well, this is about the worst atrocity you have yet committed.”
Winnie, standing behind him, would make eyes at the rest of the girls, and remark penitently, “I am very sorry.”
“You look sorry,” Professor Waite replied, on one occasion.
“I don’t see how you can tell how I look,” Winnie answered, “when you are sitting with your back to me.”
I do not know whether Milly’s denseness or Winnie’s impudence was the more irritating to Professor Waite. Winnie resented his severity to Milly and was always more provoking whenever he had grieved her pet and left her sobbing in a mire of charcoal and tears.