“Why, he writes stories,” Thurley said. “Even Birge’s Corners has become aware of him.”
“Bless his wicked heart!” Ernestine said swiftly.
Thurley began to wonder why Caleb Patmore ever used any other woman as a model for heroines or Collin Hedley for his paintings. Perhaps it was Ernestine’s unusual fashion of dress which made every one feel that she had worn only the least beautiful of her gowns or the careless, homely way she dressed her hair or her unjewelled, ugly hands which could coax from the pianoforte such music as Thurley had never dreamed could exist—or her sarcastic worldliness tempered with a girlish idealism which made her face bright with smiles. Then there was the strange, restless sadness in her eyes and the way the scarlet mouth had of dropping into hurt little curves, symbolic of many things of which Thurley was still ignorant. Ernestine Christian was indifferent, even insolent, regarding her fame, but jealously proud of her theories about it. And when she mentioned Bliss Hobart a few moments later, she said enthusiastically,
“He is such a wonderful idealist, so tremendously sincere and fearless! Most idealists lack the courage to express themselves and they live and die with the world no wiser, but Bliss—! some day, when you, too, have become worldly wise and a bit tired ’way inside, you will understand.”
To which Thurley innocently replied, “Is Caleb Patmore an idealist?”
Ernestine began playing with the fringe of her sash. “Now what do you think?”
Thurley looked at the portrait and then at her hostess. “I don’t know,” she evaded.
“Tut-tut, tell me what you think! Never mind what you know.”
“His novels, even though they sell in as small towns as the Corners, are rather—rather—” She floundered piteously.
Ernestine came to the rescue, her scarlet lips curving down in hurt fashion as she answered, “His novels for the most part comprise tattling on blondined art models—and brides! Caleb believes that art must be on a strictly commercial basis and that no art should be enduring, ‘any more than a bath,’ as he explains, ‘but quite as necessary and frequent.’”