She took her sketch and pinned it up on the door.

“And has Mr. Beaton been about, yet?” asked her mother.

“No,” said the girl, with her back still turned; and she added, “I believe he’s in New York; Mr. Wetmore’s seen him.”

“It’s a little strange he doesn’t call.”

“It would be if he were not an artist.  But artists never do anything like other people.  He was on his good behavior while he was with us, and he’s a great deal more conventional than most of them; but even he can’t keep it up.  That’s what makes me really think that women can never amount to anything in art.  They keep all their appointments, and fulfil all their duties just as if they didn’t know anything about art.  Well, most of them don’t.  We’ve got that new model to-day.”

“What new model?”

“The one Mr. Wetmore was telling us about the old German; he’s splendid.  He’s got the most beautiful head; just like the old masters’ things.  He used to be Humphrey Williams’s model for his Biblical-pieces; but since he’s dead, the old man hardly gets anything to do.  Mr. Wetmore says there isn’t anybody in the Bible that Williams didn’t paint him as.  He’s the Law and the Prophets in all his Old Testament pictures, and he’s Joseph, Peter, Judas Iscariot, and the Scribes and Pharisees in the New.”

“It’s a good thing people don’t know how artists work, or some of the most sacred pictures would have no influence,” said Mrs. Leighton.

“Why, of course not!” cried the girl.  “And the influence is the last thing a painter thinks of—­or supposes he thinks of.  What he knows he’s anxious about is the drawing and the color.  But people will never understand how simple artists are.  When I reflect what a complex and sophisticated being I am, I’m afraid I can never come to anything in art.  Or I should be if I hadn’t genius.”

“Do you think Mr. Beaton is very simple?” asked Mrs. Leighton.

“Mr. Wetmore doesn’t think he’s very much of an artist.  He thinks he talks too well.  They believe that if a man can express himself clearly he can’t paint.”

“And what do you believe?”

“Oh, I can express myself, too.”

The mother seemed to be satisfied with this evasion.  After a while she said, “I presume he will call when he gets settled.”

The girl made no answer to this.  “One of the girls says that old model is an educated man.  He was in the war, and lost a hand.  Doesn’t it seem a pity for such a man to have to sit to a class of affected geese like us as a model?  I declare it makes me sick.  And we shall keep him a week, and pay him six or seven dollars for the use of his grand old head, and then what will he do?  The last time he was regularly employed was when Mr. Mace was working at his Damascus Massacre.  Then he wanted so many Arab sheiks and Christian elders that he kept old Mr. Lindau steadily employed for six months.  Now he has to pick up odd jobs where he can.”