He looked at his watch. “Forgive me! It is past noon. Run away, child, and come back at two.”
The day seemed very long in spite of Camille’s easy kindness, and the girl shrank from the subsequent sitting at Varini’s.
“Why do you pose for those wretched boys?” grumbled the Prix de Rome man. “After this week you must come to me only. I must paint a Rosamund.”
At sunset she hurried down the hill to the Corso, and came by way of the corridor and garden to the pavilion. The porter took her into a dingy little lumber-filled passage and left her there. A soiled pink satin frock was laid ready for her on a broken chair. As she put it on she heard a babel of voices in the class-room beyond, and she felt something like stage-fright as she fumbled at the hooks and eyes; but a clock struck the hour presently, and she went in then and climbed on to the throne. At first she saw nothing, but after a while she was aware of a group of men who stood near the door regarding her.
“Carina.”
“Yes, a fine colour, but too thin.”
When the professor came in he made her sit in a carved chair, and gave her a fan to hold. The men moved about, choosing their places, and were silent until he left them with a gruff “Felice notte.” Olive noticed the lad who had been called in to Varini’s studio to see her; the boy who sat next him had a round, impudent face, and when presently she yawned he smiled at her.
“I will ask questions to keep you awake, but you must answer truly. Have you taken a fancy to anyone here?”
“I don’t dislike you or Mario.”
They rose simultaneously and bowed. “We are honoured. But why? Bembi here is a fine figure of a man.”