“I’m glad you think that,” he remarked with increasing satisfaction; “but of course you would.”
“Of course. And, after all, a few inches on to one’s nose hardly signifies, does it? not to mention a jaw that no woman ever possessed outside a show. Your drawing puts me in mind of somebody or other’s criticism on Pope’s translation of Homer—‘a very pretty story, Mr Pope, but it is not Homer.’ Yours is a very wonderful creation, Mr St. John, but it in no wise resembles the copy.”
St. John glared.
“I thought you said you admired character?” he exclaimed.
“So I do; and there is a great deal of character in the original, I consider; but if you wish for a candid opinion, I think your head is simply a masculine monstrosity. But, come, you need not look so angry; we do not win our spurs at the first charge, you know. Must I praise your failures as well as your successes, eh?”
“You don’t think me quite such a conceited fool, I hope,” he said somewhat deprecatingly, though he still looked a little dissatisfied and aggrieved. “I only meant that it wasn’t altogether bad for a first attempt.”
But it was not Jill’s intention to flatter.
“It isn’t altogether good for a first attempt,” she said.
“You are not very encouraging,” he remarked a trifle reproachfully. “Had you been my pupil and I had said so much—”
“I should have thought you very disagreeable,” she interrupted, laughing.