“I don’t know what you intend to do, but take my advice. Don’t be too easy. If I were as young and pretty as you, I tell you, I would make every son of a gun pay me well.”
I said:
“I’ll be contented if I can just get work soon.”
She looked at me with a queer, bitter little smile, and then she said:
“It doesn’t pay to work. I’ve worked all my life.”
Then she laughed bitterly, and went out suddenly, closing the door behind her.
As soon as I had washed and changed from my heavy Canadian coat to a little blue cloth suit I had made myself, I started out at once to look up the artist, Mr. Sands, whose address papa had given me.
I lost my way several times. I always got lost in Boston. The streets were like a maze, winding around and running off in every direction. I finally found the studio building on Boylston, and climbed up four flights of stairs. When I got to the top, I came to a door with a neat little visiting card with Mr. Sands’ name upon it. I remembered that Count von Hatzfeldt had his card on the door like this, and for the first time I had an instinctive feeling that my own large japanned sign: “Miss Ascough, Artist,” etc., was funny and provincial. Even papa had never put up such a sign, and when he first saw mine, he had laughed and then had run his hand absently through his hair and said he “supposed it was all right” for the kind of work I expected to do. Dear papa! He wouldn’t have hurt my feelings for worlds. With what pride had I not shown him my sign and “studio!”
I knocked on Mr. Sands’ door, and presently he himself opened it. At first he did not know me, but when I stammered:
“I’m—Miss Ascough. D-don’t you remember me? I did some work for you in Montreal eight years ago, and you told me to come to Boston. Well—I’ve come!”