of studying art twenty years ago? Ruth wondered. It seemed to her that the model was thinking the same thing. Then she forgot his face and began to block in her sketch.

The girl next to her had a scholarship, her name was Dorothy Winslow, a rather pretty, widemouthed girl with a shock of corn-coloured bobbed hair and very merry blue eyes. Out of the corner of her eye Ruth watched her work. She had large, 28beautiful hands and the ends of her slim fingers were always smudged with charcoal or blotted up with paint. She wore a painting-smock of purple and green batik. Ruth was tremendously impressed, but tried not to be. She was torn between a desire to dress in the same manner and a determination to consider herself superior to such affectations and remain smug in the consciousness of her conventional dress. Still she did wonder how she would look with her hair bobbed. How fast Dorothy Winslow worked. Her pencil seemed so sure. Never mind, she must not be jealous.

28

“Facility? Facility is dangerous—big things aren’t done in a few minutes—Rome wasn’t built in a day,” she said to herself in the best manner of her instructor in Indianapolis. One thing that puzzled her was the way the instructors left the students alone. They were there to teach, why didn’t they do it? Instead, they passed around about twice a week and looked at the drawings and said something like “You’re getting on all right—just keep it up,” or now and then really gave a criticism, but more often just looked and passed on to the next without a word in the most tantalizing manner possible. The reticence of the instructors was amply balanced by the loquacity of the students. They looked at each other’s work and criticized or praised in the frankest manner possible, and seemingly without a hint of jealousy or self-consciousness. It was time to rest. The model left the throne and 29immediately the students all left their drawing-boards to talk.

29

Dorothy Winslow leaned over Ruth’s shoulder.

“That’s really awfully nice, the way you’ve got that line,—” she pointed with one long, slim charcoal-smudged finger.

“Do you think so? Thank you,” said Ruth.

“Krakowski’s lovely to work from, anyway. I’d love to paint him. He’s got such an interesting head.”

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