"No," said Charmian. "The only thing is to tear him out of your heart; and I will help you!" She made as if she were ready to begin then, and Cornelia broke into a genuine laugh.
"Don't be ridiculous. I guess there isn't much to tear."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"Nothing! What can I! There isn't anything to do anything about. If it's there, he knows it, and he's left it there because he didn't care what we thought. He was just trying something. He's always treated me like a perfect—child. That's all there is of it, and you know it."
"Yes," Charmian meekly assented. Then she plucked up a spirit in Cornelia's behalf. "The only thing is to keep going on the same as ever, and show him we haven't seen anything, and don't care if we have."
"No," said Cornelia sadly, "I shall not come any more. Or, if I do, it will just be to—— I'm not certain yet what I shall do." She provisionally dried her eyes and repaired her looks at the little mirror which hung at one side of the mantel, and then came back to Charmian who stood looking at Cornelia's sketches, still in the order Ludlow had left them in. She stole her arm round Cornelia's waist. "Well, anyway, he can't say you've returned the compliment. They're perfectly magnificent, every one; and they're all me. Now we can both live for art."
XXVI.
Wetmore came the next morning with Ludlow, and looked at Cornelia's studies. "Well, there's no doubt about her talent. I wonder why it was wasted on one of her sex! These gifted girls, poor things, there don't seem to be any real call for them." He turned from the sketches a moment to the arrangement of Charmian's studio. "I suppose this is the other girl's expression." He looked more closely at the keeping of the room, and said, with a smile of mixed compassion and amusement, "Why, this girl seems to be trying to do the Bohemian act!"
"That is her pose," Ludlow admitted.