“Yes; there’s no teaching to be got in London.”
“No?” Matt turned pale.
“No. At least, that’s what everybody says in England. Paris alone has the tradition. Once it was Holland, once Florence, and now it’s Paris. Why, in Paris any fellows who club together can get the biggest men to visit them free, gratis, for nothing. Here the big pots prefer the society of the swells.”
“Then why are you not in Paris?” asked Matt, rallying.
“Ah! That’s where my governor is such an idiot. He pretends to think there’s more chance for a man who’s been through the Academy Schools; he gets known to the R.A.’s, and all that. But his real reason is that he’s afraid to trust me in Paris by myself.”
“No?” said Matt, in sympathetic incredulity.
“Yes; that’s why he had this room knocked into a studio for me—it always reminds me of a nursery, at the top of the house-and even selects my female models, knows their parents, and that sort of thing. It’s all sheer selfishness, I tell you, and I’m just sick of all this perpetual fussing and worrying over me, as if I were a prize pig or a race-horse. A man of twenty-three not allowed to have a studio or chambers of his own! You don’t realize how lucky you are, my boy. If I could afford it I’d chuck up the governor to-morrow. But I’m dependent on him for every farthing. And all he allows me for pocket-money is—well, you’d never guess—”
Matt did not make the attempt; he judged Herbert might think meanly of even a pound a week, but he did not dare to hazard a guess.
“Three hundred a year! And out of that I’ve got to get my clothes and pay my models, confound ’em!”
Matt stared in startled, reverential envy.