ut her talent. I wonder why it was
wasted on one of her sex! These gifted girls, poor things, there don't
seem to be any real call for them." He turned from the sketches a
moment to the arrangement of Charmian's studio. "I suppose this is the
other girl's expression." He looked more closely at the keeping of the
room, and said, with a smile of mixed compassion and amusement, "Why,
this girl seems to be trying to do the Bohemian act!"

"That is her pose," Ludlow admitted.

"And does she get a great deal of satisfaction out of it?"

"The usual amount I fancy." Ludlow began to tell of some of Charmian's
attempts to realize her ideal.

Wetmore listened with a pitying smile. "Poor thing! It isn't much like
the genuine thing, as we used to see it in Paris, is it? We Americans
are too innocent in our traditions and experiences; our Bohemia is a
non-alcoholic, unfermented condition. When it is diluted down to the
apprehension of an American girl it's no better, or no worse, than a
kind of Arcadia. Miss Maybough ought to go round with a shepherdess's
crook and a straw hat with daisies in it. That's what _she_ wants to
do, if she knew it. Is that a practicable pipe? I suppose those
cigarettes are chocolates in disguise. Well!" He reverted to Cornelia's
canvases. "Why, of course they're good. She's doomed. She will have to
exhibit. You couldn't do less, Ludlow, than have her carry this one a
little farther"--he picked out one of the canvases and set it
apart--"and offer it to the Academy."

"Do you really think so?" asked Ludlow, looking at it gravely.

"I don't know. With the friends you've got on the Committee---- But you
don't suppose I came up here to see these things alone, did you?
Where's _your_ picture?"

"I haven't any," said Ludlow.

"Ob, rubbish! Where's your theory of a picture, then? I don't care what
you call it. My only anxiety, when you got a plain, simple, every-day
conundrum like Miss Maybough to paint, was that you would try to paint
the answer instead of the conundrum, and I dare say that's the trouble.
You've been trying to give something more of her character than you
found in her face; is that it? Well, you deserved to fail, then. You've
been trying to _interpret_ her; to come the prophet! I don't condemn
the poetry in your nature, Ludlow," Wetmore went on, "and if I could
manage it for you, I think I could keep it from doing mischief. That is
why I am so plain-spoken with you."

"Do you call it p