“Paint models, then,” said Miss Mason. “Choose your subject.”
“It is not the same thing,” replied Barnabas gravely. “A model who is paid for sitting does not rank with a creature who pays one to immortalize their material features on canvas. To say I have a model coming to sit for me this morning is nothing. To say the Lady Mayoress of So-and-So comes to my study at eleven o’clock this morning is quite another matter. At first your fellow-artists say, ‘Pure swank on his part.’ But when eleven o’clock arrives, and with it the Lady Mayoress in a gold coach with four horses and velvet-breeched lackeys with cocked hats—why, then the whole thing assumes totally different proportions. I am regarded in a new light. I become a person of importance among my fellow-men. I gaze upon a double chin, boot-button eyes, and a smile that won’t come off, enduring mental torture thereby, in order that later I may strut from my studio with an air of swagger, and hear myself spoken of as ‘John Kirby, the portrait painter.’ And once more I ask you, how can one attain to the distinction of portrait painter if one does not paint portraits?”
“Barnabas, you’re ridiculous,” said Miss Mason. “You talk of nothing seriously, not even your art which you love. But if you could be serious for ten minutes, I’d like to ask you about a scheme I have in my mind.”
There was a little hesitancy in the last words. Barnabas looked up quickly.
“I’m attending,” he said gravely.
“You know,” said Miss Mason quietly, “that for a woman who spends as little as I do I am very rich.”
Barnabas nodded. “I thought you must have a good bit of money,” he said, glancing round the studio.
Miss Mason followed the direction of his glance.
“That was rather—what you would call a splurge—on my part,” said Miss Mason. “Fact is, I have about fifteen thousand a year. If I spend two in the year it will be all I shall do.”
“Yes,” said Barnabas gravely.