Within the last few moments Tory Drew had gone through a process of enlightenment with regard to the character of her new acquaintance. No longer was she so deeply discouraged or unable to express herself. She knew him to be intensely critical both of his own work and of other people’s, deeply sensitive and yet compelled to tell the truth as he saw it, whether it would hurt himself or others.
“Do you think I could learn to draw, learn to see color differently and to paint it?” Tory asked with the little charming half-shy, half-friendly manner to which most persons yielded.
Philip Winslow frowned.
“I would like to have you study with me a few years and afterwards go to some one I recommend, if you would work. But you won’t. You are a girl and girls don’t work, not really. But why should you? You know what my work has brought me: poverty and but few friends, no recognition. You need not work half so hard and will have better fortune with any other teacher.”
Unexpectedly and light-heartedly Tory laughed.
Her two companions, Dorothy and Lance, stared at her in surprise and in consternation. Ordinarily Tory possessed beautiful manners which the other young people in Westhaven admired and oftentimes envied. Yet it was not polite of Tory to laugh either in the face of Mr. Winslow’s criticism or his bitterness with regard to himself.
“I beg your pardon,” she added an instant later. “I was only thinking. Father told me you would say pretty much what you have said. If only you would agree to teach me some day I must not mind anything else. I don’t believe your work is so unpopular as you say it is. It is only that you are not well and you are impatient and angry with people when they don’t see things as you do. You know you really ought to be a Girl Scout.”
Tory flushed.
“I suppose you will think I am rude. I am afraid I was really. Only you seem to feel as I did when I came to Westhaven to live last winter and thought no one understood or liked me. When I became a Scout I saw things differently.”
Mr. Winslow did not appear offended by Tory’s odd speeches.