"And does she get a great deal of satisfaction out of it?"
"The usual amount I fancy." Ludlow began to tell of some of Charmian's attempts to realize her ideal.
Wetmore listened with a pitying smile. "Poor thing! It isn't much like the genuine thing, as we used to see it in Paris, is it? We Americans are too innocent in our traditions and experiences; our Bohemia is a non-alcoholic, unfermented condition. When it is diluted down to the apprehension of an American girl it's no better, or no worse, than a kind of Arcadia. Miss Maybough ought to go round with a shepherdess's crook and a straw hat with daisies in it. That's what she wants to do, if she knew it. Is that a practicable pipe? I suppose those cigarettes are chocolates in disguise. Well!" He reverted to Cornelia's canvases. "Why, of course they're good. She's doomed. She will have to exhibit. You couldn't do less, Ludlow, than have her carry this one a little farther"—he picked out one of the canvases and set it apart—"and offer it to the Academy."
"Do you really think so?" asked Ludlow, looking at it gravely.
"I don't know. With the friends you've got on the Committee—— But you don't suppose I came up here to see these things alone, did you? Where's your picture?"
"I haven't any," said Ludlow.
"Ob, rubbish! Where's your theory of a picture, then? I don't care what you call it. My only anxiety, when you got a plain, simple, every-day conundrum like Miss Maybough to paint, was that you would try to paint the answer instead of the conundrum, and I dare say that's the trouble. You've been trying to give something more of her character than you found in her face; is that it? Well, you deserved to fail, then. You've been trying to interpret her; to come the prophet! I don't condemn the poetry in your nature, Ludlow," Wetmore went on, "and if I could manage it for you, I think I could keep it from doing mischief. That is why I am so plain-spoken with you."
"Do you call it plain-speaking?" Ludlow said, putting his picture where it could be seen best. "I was going to accuse you of flattery."
"Well, you had better ponder the weighty truths I have let fall. I don't go round dropping them on everybody's toes."
"Probably there are not enough of them," Ludlow suggested.