“No, indeed, they’re not rich. I never heard of a perpetual student who was rich. Why, Camille De Muth, the fat one, sometimes has to pose in the portrait class to earn money to pay for her life.”
“How does she live?” asked Ruth.
“Dear Lord, as well ask me why is an art student as how does one live—how do any of us live, except of course the lucky ones with an allowance from home?”
All the time she was talking, Dorothy Winslow was moving her hands, defying all the laws of physiology by bending her long fingers back over the tops of them, and by throwing one white thumb out of joint.
“But you haven’t told me why they do it—why they keep on studying year after year. Don’t they try to make any use of what they’ve learned?”
“Not that I ever heard of—they’re just—just art artists. They spend their lives in class and at exhibitions, but I’ve never tried to understand them—too busy trying to understand myself.”
“What do they do when they’re not here?” asked Ruth.
“They spend their leisure in the cool marble twilight of the Metropolitan, making bad copies of old masters.”
The model had reappeared and they went back to their boards, but after class Ruth found that Dorothy Winslow was walking by her side toward Fifth Avenue.
“Do you go downtown?” asked Dorothy.