teen hundred dollars for his portraits
and such daubs--don't you think so?"

(Emil Varnot was one of the tribe of foreign artists who periodically
descend upon American cities and reap in a few months a rich harvest of
portraits, if they are properly introduced--much to the disgust of local
talent.)

"Don't be impatient, Milly," Mrs. Kemp counselled. "It will come in
time, I've no doubt. You must save up to go abroad first."

But the dull way of thrift was not Milly's; it was not American.
Improvements there are financed by mortgage, not by savings. They must
borrow to make the next step.... Milly had lofty ideals of helping her
husband in his work. She was to be his inspiration in Art, of course:
that was to go on all the time. More practically she hoped to serve as
model from which his creations would issue to capture fame. She had
heard of artists who had painted themselves into fame through their
wives' figures, and she longed to emulate the wives. But this illusion
was shattered during the first year of their married life. When Bragdon
essayed a picture in the slack summer season, it was discovered that
Milly, for all her vivacious good looks, was not paintable in the full
figure. (They had tried her on the sands behind the flat, where they
rigged up an impromptu studio out of old sails.) Her legs were too short
between the thigh and the knee, and when the artist tried to correct
this defect of his model, the result was disastrous.... However, what
was of more practical purpose, her head answered very well, and Milly's
pretty face adorned the covers of various minor magazines, done in all
possible color schemes at twenty dollars per head. "I earn something,"
she said, by way of self-consolation.

She had another disappointment. She had imagined that her husband would
do most of his work at home, immediately under her fostering eye, and
that in this way she should have a finger, so to speak, in the creative
process; but for the present the sort of "art" they lived on was best
done in an office, with the thud of steam presses beneath and the eager
eye of the copy-reader at the door. So Milly was left to herself for
long hours in her new little home, and Milly was lonely. The trouble
obviously was that Milly had not enough to do to occupy her abundant
energy and interest in life. They were not to have children if possible:
in the modern way they had settled beforehand that _that_ was
impossible. And modern life ha