"I don't believe I do," said Cornelia, taking up her drawing again, as if she were going on with it.
"Horrors!" Miss Maybough put her hand out over the sketch. "You don't mean that you're going to carry it any farther?"
"Why, it isn't finished yet," Cornelia began.
"Of course it isn't, and it never ought to be! I hope you're not going to turn out a niggler! Please don't! I couldn't bear to have you. Nobody will respect you if you finish. Don't! If you won't come out with me and get a breath of fresh air, do start a new drawing! I want them to see this in the rough. It's so bold."
Miss Maybough had left her own drawing in the rough, but it could not be called bold; though if she had seen the block hand with a faltering eye, she seemed to have had a fearless vision of many other things, and she had covered her paper with a fantastic medley of grotesque shapes, out of that imagination which she had given Cornelia to know was so fatally mischievous to her in its uninvited activities. "Don't look at them!" she pleaded, when Cornelia involuntarily glanced at her study. "My only hope is to hate them. I almost pray to be delivered from them. Let's talk of something else." She turned the sheet over. "Do you mind my having said that about your drawing?"
"No!" said Cornelia, provoked to laughter by the solemnity of the demand. "Why should I?"
"Oh, I don't know. Do you think you shall like me? I mean, do you care if I like you—very, very much?"
"I don't suppose I could stop it if I did, could I?" asked Cornelia.
The Sphinx seemed to find heart to smile. "Of course, I'm ridiculous. But I do hope we're going to be friends. Tell me about yourself. Or, have some more tea!"