'He certainly is,' said Kirk. 'Or at any rate, for some understudy to
her.'
'We must think. Do they all call you Kirk?'
'I've never met one who didn't.'
'What horrible creatures you artists are!'
'My dear kid, you don't understand the thing at all. When you're
painting a model she ceases to be a girl at all. You don't think of her
as anything except a sort of lay-figure.'
'Good gracious! Does your lay-figure call you Kirk too?'
'It always looks as if it were going to.'
Ruth shuddered.
'It's a repulsive thing. I hate it. It gives me the creeps. I came in
here last night and switched on the light, and there it was, goggling
at me.'
'Are you getting nervous?'
Ruth's face grew grave.
'Do you know, Kirk, I really believe I am. This morning as I was
dressing, I suddenly got the most awful feeling that something terrible
was going to happen. I don't know what. It was perfectly vague. I just
felt a kind of horror. It passed off in a moment or two; but, while it
lasted , ugh!'
'How ghastly! Why didn't you tell me before? You must be run down. Look
here, let's shut up this place and get out to Florida or somewhere for
the winter!'
'Let's don't do anything of the kind. Florida indeed! For the love of
Mike, as Steve would say, it's much too expensive. You know, Kirk, we
are both frightfully extravagant. I'm sure we are spending too much
money as it is. You know you sold out some of your capital only the
other day.'
'It was only that once. And you had set your heart on that pendant.
Surely to goodness, if I drag you away from a comfortable home to live
in a hovel, the least I can do is to......'
'You didn't drag me. I just walked in and sat down, and you couldn't
think how to get rid of me, so in despair you married me.'
'That was it. And now I've got to set to work and make a fortune
and, what do you call it? support you in the style to which you have
been accustomed. Which brings us back to the picture. I don't suppose I
shall get ten dollars for it, but I feel I shall curl up and die if I
don't get it finished. Are you absolutely determined about the
Vince girl?'
'I'm adamant. I'm granite. I'm chilled steel. Oh! Kirk, can't you find
a nice, motherly old model, with white hair and spectacles? I shouldn't
mind her calling you by your first name.'
'But it's absurd. I told you just now that an artist doesn't look on
his models as human beings while......'
'I know. I've read all about that in books, and I believed it then.
Why, when I married you, I said to myself: 'I mustn't be foolish.
Kirk's an artist, I mustn't be a comic-supplement wife and object to
his using models!' Oh, I was going to be so good and reasonable. You
