"You are better," she cried. "I can see that in your eyes. And what beautiful blue eyes they are. A little cold, perhaps, but they won't be so cold when they have looked at the world through our spectacles. Now drink your tea, and when you feel up to it you can come and look at the sitting-room."
Mary was almost herself again when she entered the sitting-room. It was a fairly large room, with a dining-table in the centre and a large table, littered with brushes and paints and panels, which stood in the window looking on to the street. A score of sketches in black and white faced Mary. So far as she could see, it was clever work, but not the kind that appealed to her. The sketches partook of the light and frivolous kind, some of them had more or less feeble jokes attached.
"Are these yours?" Mary asked. "Are they studies of some kind?"
"Not at all," Connie said cheerfully. "They are translations from the Yankees. The originals are very clear, but a little too trans-Atlantic for our stolid English taste. So I more or less copy them and my editor adapts the jokes. I do six of them every week for The Wheezer, which is a very useful commission for me."
"But that sounds like piracy almost," Mary exclaimed.
"Perhaps it is," Connie said in the same cheerful way. "It is pretty easy work, and I get six shillings a drawing. That is an average of thirty-six shillings a week. I know artists who have exhibited in the Academy who are glad to accept such a commission. It is better than working for the Razzle Dazzle anyway."
Mary shuddered. In a way the Razzle Dazzle was familiar to her. She had once caught one of the stable boys deep in that appalling mass of bad printing and worse literature.
"So you have actually worked for that paper?" she managed to say.
"Oh, yes. Two shillings a drawing, and pay once a month. Do you know that the Razzle Dazzle is a property worth £10,000 a year? Their serials are imported from America, and dressed up by hacks, who get two shillings a column for their work. The Wheezer is far better than that. Besides, it is practice. Some day I hope to drop this kind of thing and get regular commissions for the better-class weekly papers. The illustrating of stories in the sixpenny magazines is the goal of my ambition."
All this was so frank and open that Mary could not resent the tone of the speaker. And yet she paled at the degradation of the class of labour.