to Philip with
an anxious look, which she tried to hide by a sullen frown.

"D'you think it's good?" she asked, nodding at her drawing.

Philip got up and looked at it. He was astounded; he felt she must have no
eye at all; the thing was hopelessly out of drawing.

"I wish I could draw half as well myself," he answered.

"You can't expect to, you've only just come. It's a bit too much to expect
that you should draw as well as I do. I've been here two years."

Fanny Price puzzled Philip. Her conceit was stupendous. Philip had already
discovered that everyone in the studio cordially disliked her; and it was
no wonder, for she seemed to go out of her way to wound people.

"I complained to Mrs. Otter about Foinet," she said now. "The last two
weeks he hasn't looked at my drawings. He spends about half an hour on
Mrs. Otter because she's the massiere. After all I pay as much as
anybody else, and I suppose my money's as good as theirs. I don't see why
I shouldn't get as much attention as anybody else."

She took up her charcoal again, but in a moment put it down with a groan.

"I can't do any more now. I'm so frightfully nervous."

She looked at Foinet, who was coming towards them with Mrs. Otter. Mrs.
Otter, meek, mediocre, and self-satisfied, wore an air of importance.
Foinet sat down at the easel of an untidy little Englishwoman called Ruth
Chalice. She had the fine black eyes, languid but passionate, the thin
face, ascetic but sensual, the skin like old ivory, which under the
influence of Burne-Jones were cultivated at that time by young ladies in
Chelsea. Foinet seemed in a pleasant mood; he did not say much to her, but
with quick, determined strokes of her charcoal pointed out her errors.
Miss Chalice beamed with pleasure when he rose. He came to Clutton, and by
this time Philip was nervous too but Mrs. Otter had promised to make
things easy for him. Foinet stood for a moment in front of Clutton's work,
biting his thumb silently, then absent-mindedly spat out upon the canvas
the little piece of skin which he had bitten off.

"That's a fine line," he said at last, indicating with his thumb what
pleased him. "You're beginning to learn to draw."

Clutton did not answer, but looked at the master with his usual air of
sardonic indifference to the world's opinion.

"I'm beginning to think you have at least a trace of talent."

Mrs. Otter, who did not like Clutton, pursed her lips. She did not see
anything out of