Part 27

He laughed, as if he liked her flippancy, and he said, "It's very simple. In fact, that's what makes it so difficult."

"Then you might practice on something hard first," she suggested wildly. "How would the weather do?"

"Yes, hasn't it been beautiful?" said Ludlow, with an involuntary lapse into earnestness. "I was in the Park to-day for a little effect I wanted to get, and it was heartbreaking to leave the woods. I was away up in those forest depths that look wild in spite of the asphalt. If you haven't been there, you must go some day while the autumn color lasts. I saw a lot of your Synthesis ladies painting there. I didn't know but I might see you."

This was all very matter of fact. Cornelia took herself in hand, and shook herself out of her hallucination. "No, I don't suppose it would be right for a person who was merely in the Preparatory to go sketching in the Park. And Charmian and I were very good to-day, and kept working away at our block hands as long as the light lasted."

"Ah, yes; Miss Maybough," said Ludlow; then he paused absently a moment. "Do you think she is going to do much in art?"

"How should I know?" returned Cornelia. She thought it rather odd he should recur to that after she had let him see she did not want to talk about Charmian's art.

"Because you know that you can do something yourself," said Ludlow. "That is the only kind of people who can really know. The other sort of people can make clever guesses; they can't know."

"And you believe that I can do something?" asked Cornelia, and a sudden revulsion of feeling sent the tears to her eyes. It was so sweet to be praised, believed in, after what she had been through. "But you haven't seen anything of mine except those things--in the Fair House."

"Oh, yes, I have. I've seen the drawings you submitted at the Synthesis. I've just seen them. I may as well confess it: I asked to see them."

"You did! And--and--well?" she fluttered back.

"It will take hard work."

"Oh, I know that!"

"And it will take time."

"Yes, that is the worst of it. I don't see how I can give the time."

"Why?" he asked.

"Oh, because--I can't very well be away from home." She colored as she said this, for she could have been away from home well enough if she had the money. "I thought I would come and try it for one winter."

He said lightly, "Perhaps you'll get so much interested that you'll find you can take more time."

"I don't know," she answered.

"Well, then, you must get in all the work you can this winter. Block hands are well enough, but they're not the whole of art nor the whole preparation for it."

"Oh, I've joined the sketch class," she said.

"Yes, that's well enough, too," he assented. "But I want you to come and paint with me," he suddenly added.

"You? Me?" she gasped.

"Yes," he returned. "I'll tell you what I mean. I've been asked to paint a lady. She'll have to come to my place, and I want you to come with her, and see what you can do, too. I hope it doesn't seem too extraordinary?" he broke off, at sight of the color in her face.

"Oh, no," said Cornelia. She wondered what Charmian would say if she knew this; she wondered what the Synthesis would say; the Synthesis held Mr. Ludlow in only less honor than the regular Synthesis instructors, and Mr. Ludlow had asked her to come and paint with him! She took shelter in the belief that Mrs. Burton must have put him up to it, somehow, but she ought to say something grateful, or at least something. She found herself stupidly and aimlessly asking, "Is it Mrs. Westley?" as if that had anything to do with the matter.

"No; I don't see why I didn't tell you at once," said Ludlow. "It's your friend, Miss Maybough."

Cornelia relieved her nerves with a laugh. "I wonder how she ever kept from telling it."

"Perhaps she didn't know. I've only just got a letter from her mother, asking me to paint her, and I haven't decided yet that I shall do it."

She thought that he wanted her to ask him why, and she asked, "What are you waiting for?"