“Why?” he asked amazed.
“Because we can’t live on love, dear; I never did like sweet things much, and you don’t like bread and cheese, and stout. I don’t much either; but I have to go in for it; it’s cheap. Only now I do without the stout—and the cheese also the last day or two.”
“But, darling,” he exclaimed, not quite certain whether she was joking or not, “you are making troubles where they don’t exist. There will be no need to live on bread and cheese and affection—though I should be equal to that even if necessary—I have five hundred a year from my father, and he has promised to increase it when I marry.”
“Providing you marry your cousin,” Jill interposed. “He would certainly decrease it if you married me. Oh! I know quite well all about it. You forget that he called upon me; he told me so then. And though you love me and I love you we shouldn’t be such fools, Jack, as to marry on nothing.”
St. John looked glum. He entertained no doubt that his father had resolved upon this plan of deterring him from marrying the girl he wished to, and he determined to thwart him if possible.
“We could get married, and I could come and live here,” he suggested brilliantly, “and we could work together; that would be jolly.”
Jill smiled at this proposal but shook her head decisively.
“It’s no good; it wouldn’t answer,” she said. “We should fight dreadfully in a month, and then the models would get smashed. And you’d never earn anything at painting, you know; your pictures always require explaining, and your figures are atrocious. I can’t think why you will persist in going in for the human form divine; it’s most difficult; for any fool can see when a figure’s out of drawing except the one who draws it, and you never will learn that green isn’t a becoming tint for flesh even in the deep shadows.”
St. John heaved a sigh which seemed to proceed from the bottom of his boots. He was too genuinely despondent to resent her slighting criticism of his abilities, or too well aware of its truth perhaps. He rose impatiently, and walked restlessly up and down trying to think. Jill watched him, her own brows knit in a hopeless attempt to solve the difficulty.
“This is a pretty kettle of fish,” he exclaimed swinging round so suddenly that he nearly upset the model. “I’m hanged if I see what we are to do.”