“Thank you,” he answered. “I am sorry that I cannot agree with you. Shall I stay this morning?”
Jill looked rather alarmed at this proposal, but, she reasoned within herself, if he were coming at all he might as well begin at once, so, after another long pause, and a dubious look round the none too tidy studio, she gave an ungracious assent, whereupon he immediately commenced divesting himself of his overcoat, an action he regretted when it was too late, and, but for fear of hurting her feelings, he would have slipped into it again for the fire was nearly out and the room struck chill; he wondered how she sat there painting with her small hands almost blue with cold.
“The servant,” explained Jill airily with the astuteness of a very observant nature, “will be here with the coals shortly; she usually brings them up at about eleven.”
He looked rather disconcerted.
“Oh, I’m not cold in the least,” he exclaimed untruthfully, “it is quite warm to-day.”
“Yes,” replied the girl shortly, “the thermometer is below Zero, I should say. Will you sit here please?”
She placed him as near the fire as possible and provided him with drawing-materials, then going over to a shelf began to rummage among endless books and papers for a suitable copy simple enough for him to start on.
“I wish to go in for the figure from life,” he modestly observed.
Jill fairly gasped at his audacity; she had understood him to say that he was a novice.
“How much,” she asked, pausing in her search and regarding him critically the while she put the question, “or how little drawing did I understand you to say you had done up to the present?”