“He is about thirty, but that isn’t old. He’s a funny, old dear, don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” admitted Ruth. “He dresses oddly—that is—”
“I know what you mean, but you see a man like Terry Riordan doesn’t have to keep his trousers pressed. No other man is worth listening to while Terry is in the room.”
Ruth decided that she would pay particular attention to Terry Riordan the next time she met him.
Her opportunity came the next day. She had gone out to lunch that day and had been a little late at life class in consequence, and had to stand up at an easel in the back instead of sitting among the more fortunate ones in the front rows, where early arrival had usually placed her. The model was a man—“Krakowski, the wrestler,” one of the girls had whispered to her. “He’s got a wonderful body; we’re lucky to get him.”
Ruth could not control a little gasp of admiration when he stepped on the model throne. He looked like a statue with his shining smooth-muscled body, and he stood almost as still. It was several minutes before Ruth could get the proper, impersonal attitude toward him. Most of the models had quite uninteresting faces, but Krakowski had a face almost as handsome as his body, and there was a half smile on his lips as if he were secretly amused at the students. For a second Ruth saw them through his eyes—thin, earnest-eyed girls, dressed in “arty” garments, squinting at him over drawing-boards as if the fate of nations depended on their work, well-dressed dabblers and shabby strugglers after beauty. She noted again the two old women, the fat one with the dyed hair, and the ribbons and art jewelry and the thin one whose hair was quite frankly grey. The fat one had attracted Ruth’s attention the very first day because in the rest period she ran around insisting that every one near her should look at her work and offer criticism, and when the instructor came through she monopolized as much of his time as possible to his obvious annoyance.
Why didn’t they think of studying art twenty years ago? Ruth wondered. It seemed to her that the model was thinking the same thing. Then she forgot his face and began to block in her sketch.
The girl next to her had a scholarship, her name was Dorothy Winslow, a rather pretty, widemouthed girl with a shock of corn-coloured bobbed hair and very merry blue eyes. Out of the corner of her eye Ruth watched her work. She had large, beautiful hands and the ends of her slim fingers were always smudged with charcoal or blotted up with paint. She wore a painting-smock of purple and green batik. Ruth was tremendously impressed, but tried not to be. She was torn between a desire to dress in the same manner and a determination to consider herself superior to such affectations and remain smug in the consciousness of her conventional dress. Still she did wonder how she would look with her hair bobbed. How fast Dorothy Winslow worked. Her pencil seemed so sure. Never mind, she must not be jealous.
“Facility? Facility is dangerous—big things aren’t done in a few minutes—Rome wasn’t built in a day,” she said to herself in the best manner of her instructor in Indianapolis. One thing that puzzled her was the way the instructors left the students alone. They were there to teach, why didn’t they do it? Instead, they passed around about twice a week and looked at the drawings and said something like “You’re getting on all right—just keep it up,” or now and then really gave a criticism, but more often just looked and passed on to the next without a word in the most tantalizing manner possible. The reticence of the instructors was amply balanced by the loquacity of the students. They looked at each other’s work and criticized or praised in the frankest manner possible, and seemingly without a hint of jealousy or self-consciousness. It was time to rest. The model left the throne and immediately the students all left their drawing-boards to talk.
Dorothy Winslow leaned over Ruth’s shoulder.