"Not in the least necessary," said the Painter. "I have set my heart on painting her just as she is."
The girls were disappointed in his want of taste. They had had visions of a creation in which two Liberty scarfs and a velveteen table cover were combined in a felicitous harmony of color.
"When can I have the first sitting?" he asked.
"Tuesday, I think," said Miss Snell, reflectively.
"Heavens!" thought the Painter. "Is Miss Snell coming with her?" And the possibility kept him in a state of nervousness until Tuesday afternoon, when Cora appeared, accompanied by the inevitable Miss Snell.
It turned out, however, that the latter could not stay. She would call for Cora later; just now her afternoons were occupied. She was doing a pastel portrait in the Champs Elysées quarter, so she reluctantly left, to the Painter's great relief.
He did not make himself very agreeable during the sittings which followed. He was apt to get absorbed in his work and to forget to say anything. Then Miss Snell would appear to fetch her friend, and he would apologize for being so dull, and Cora would remark that she enjoyed sitting quietly, it rested her after the noise and confusion at Julian's.
"If she talked much I could not paint her, her voice is so irritating," he confided to a friend who was curious and asked all sorts of questions about his new sitter.
The work went well but slowly, for Cora sat only twice a week. She felt obliged to devote the rest of her time to study, as she was living on the prize fund, and she even had qualms of conscience about the two afternoons she gave up to the sittings.
During all this time Miss Snell continued to weave chapters of romance about Cora and the Painter, and the girls talked things over after each sitting when they were alone together.