Wilfred found he was not so deadened, but that he could still feel the pin-pricks of wounded self-love. “You don’t say anything,” he said bitterly. “You think it’s tripe, too.”
“Oh, not as bad as that!” she said. “The sentimentality was implicit in the original design. . . .”
“Why didn’t you tell me so then?”
“I tried to, but you wouldn’t have it so. . . . Why not finish it now, frankly in a sentimental vein; and go on to something else.”
“Why not advise me to tear it up?”
“But it has charm. It will sell readily.”
“You think that’s all I’m good for!”
She shook her head. “You can be as brutal as you like, next time. Your Rivington street story wasn’t sentimental.”
“Ah! don’t throw that up to me! I’ve never been able to equal it!”
“Every artist knows that feeling!”