"I want you for Andromache. I'm going to paint the captured Trojan women."
"I shall make a realistic captive, Geoff, being one in very sooth."
"And I verily believe I was inspired to paint such a subject by the consciousness that I was free no longer, my captor. I shall make a great thing of this picture, Evarne; at least, I ought to. Everything will be in my favour. Poor old Jack! He is still lamenting his unprocurable model—his 'Belle Dame.'"
"How different his work is from yours; poor old Jack!"
"I am going to try hard to persuade him to take up portrait-painting definitely. He really is very clever, you know. He ought to do well. Or sculpture; he's quite strong at that. But he will insist on trying to be imaginative, and he doesn't shine there. Now, when is the earliest day you can come?"
"It so happens that I finish to-morrow with the man I'm sitting for at present. That's Thursday, the twentieth, isn't it? Then I have nothing to do until Monday the twenty-fourth, when I ought—it's all arranged—you see I didn't expect you home until September!"
"A lot of engagements, have you?"
"I've only a few spare days here and there for the next seven weeks."
"But we're going to be married long before that time. Look here, Evarne love, give them all up! Don't sit for anyone else but me. Come, spoil me a bit. Let me be selfish. My picture is all ready and waiting for the model."
"It's terribly unfair to the others, but——"