She was more willing to go than Madoc to enter the cramped place, but the transfer was made and Adrian lingered by the osier paling, to observe at close range this subjugated monarch of the forest.
“Oh! for a palette and brush!” he exclaimed, while Pierre walked away.
“What would you do with them?”
Margot had followed the lads and was beside him, though he had not heard her footsteps. Now he wheeled about, eager, enthusiastic.
“Paint—as I have never painted before!”
“Oh!—are you an—artist?”
“I want to be one. That’s why I’m here.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I told you I was a runaway. I didn’t say ‘why,’ before. It’s truth. My people, my—father—forced me to college. I hated it. He was forcing me to business. I liked art. All my friends were artists. When I should have been at the books I was in their studios. They were a gay crowd, spent money like water when they had it, merrily starved and pinched when they hadn’t. A few were worse than spendthrifts, and with my usual want of sense I made that particular set my intimates. I never had any money, though, after it was suspected what my tastes were. Except a little that my mother gave me.”