"My masterpiece," I answered, squirting out much more of the rose-madder than I needed—this paltry little sketch I was working on now would have to be finished up and gotten out of the road for real work.
"Where?" asked David, with the laconic briefness of childhood.
"Down inside the big gate—behind the stone wall."
"Oh, that's where the Cory's live—there's a stream there, with pollywogs in it." David's mind was beginning to wander.
"But you never saw such a study in pink in all your life—think of it—pink dress—all different shades of pink—pink roses for the high-note, and then pale pink repeated in the cheeks and then way off in the background there were some pink hollyhocks." "My, oh, my," I added to myself, stubbing gamboge into the canvass to get a sunshiny effect, "My, oh, my—she sat there just like a Grenze—a Gainsborough lady, now, never would have had the courage to have leaned against the tree in that lackadaisical manner; the Lady in Pink—Whistler painted a Lady in White—I shall paint the Lady in Pink! Tomorrow I shall begin, David," I said, "tomorrow I am going down to get my masterpiece."
"Well, but you can't go in the Cory's to get it," said David; "that's private grounds."
Private grounds! The words stunned me. Couldn't an artist usually go any place he liked?
"Private grounds!" I echoed, "oh, yes; why that's so. Why, what on earth will I do?"
"I don't know," said David, with a half-rising inflection showing an abstract sympathy.