ppy young
vanity; the warm whites, Chardin would have acknowledged; yet they were
all my own, seen through my own eyes, not through the eyes of Chardin,
Whistler, or Velasquez. The blacks sung emphatic or softened notes from
the impertinent knot in the powdered hair to the bows on skirt and
bodice. The rich _empatement_ was a triumph of supple brush-work. I can
praise it impudently for it was my masterpiece, and--well, I will keep
to the consecutive recital.

Miss Jones showed no particular fellow-feeling for my work, and as,
after a fashion, she, too, was responsible for it and had a right to be
proud of it, this lack of interest rather irritated me.

Now and then, poised delicately on high heels and in her rustling robes,
she would step up to my canvas, give it a pleasant but impassive look,
and then turn away, resuming her chair and the perusal of her romance.

It really irked me after a time. However little value I might set upon
her artistic acumen, this silence in my rose of pride pricked like a
thorn.

Miss Jones's taste in painting might be as philistine as in literature,
but her reserve aroused conjecture, and I became really anxious for an
expression of opinion.

At last, one day, my curiosity burst forth:

"How do you like it?" I asked, while she stood contemplating my
_chef-d'oeuvre_ with a brightly indifferent gaze. Miss Jones turned
upon me her agate eyes--the eyelashes curled up at the corners, and it
was difficult not to believe the eyes, too, roguish.

"I should think you had a great deal of talent," she said. "Have you
studied long?"

Studied? It required some effort to adjust my thoughts to the standard
implied; but perceiving a perhaps lofty conception of artistic
attainment beneath the query, I replied:

"Well, an artist is never done learning, is he? And in the sense of
having much to learn, I am still a student, no doubt."

"Ah, yes," Miss Jones replied.

She looked from my picture up at the sky-light, then round at the
various studies, engravings, and photographs on the walls. This
discursive glance was already familiar to me, and its flitting lightness
whetted my curiosity as to possible non-committal depths beneath.

"Inspiration, now," Miss Jones pursued, surprising me a good deal, for
she seldom carried on a subject unprompted, "that of course, is not
dependent on study."

I felt in this remark something very derogatory to my Manon--an
inspiration, and in the best sense, if e