“I SAW YOU LAST NIGHT AT THE COCKATRICE—YOU DIDN’T SEE ME THOUGH.”

“THE COCKATRICE—LAST NIGHT—OH YES—WHAT A PITY!”

“WHO WERE ALL THOSE PEOPLE YOU WERE WITH?”

“OH, I DON’T KNOW, JUST SOME PEOPLE, YOU KNOW.”

He makes a movement as if to go away.

“WHO WAS THAT GIRL YOU WERE DANCING WITH SO MUCH—THE PRETTY ONE WITH FAIR HAIR—IN BLACK?”

“OH, DON’T YOU KNOW HER? YOU MUST MEET HER ONE DAY—I SAY, I’M AWFULLY SORRY, BUT I MUST GO DOWN AND GET SOME PAPER FROM MISS PHILBRICK.”

“I CAN LEND YOU SOME.”

But he is gone.

Ada says, “Too much talk in this picture, eh, Gladys?” and the voice with the Cambridge accent is heard saying something about the “elimination of the caption.”

ONE OF LIFE’S UNFORTUNATES.

Enter a young woman huddled in a dressing-gown, preceded by young Mr. Maltby.

“The model—coo—I say.”

She has a slight cold and sniffles into a tiny ball of handkerchief; she mounts the dais and sits down ungracefully. Young Mr. Maltby nods good morning to those of the pupils who catch his eye; the girl who was talking to Adam catches his eye; he smiles.

“’E’s in love with ’er.”

She returns his smile with warmth.

Young Mr. Maltby rattles the stove, opens the skylight a little and then turns to the model, who slips off her dressing gown and puts it over the back of the chair.

“Coo—I say. Ada—my!”

“Well I never.”

The young man from Cambridge goes on talking about Matisse unfalteringly as though he were well accustomed to this sort of thing. Actually he is much intrigued.

She has disclosed a dull pink body with rather short legs and red elbows; like most professional models her toes are covered with bunions and malformed. Young Mr. Maltby sets her on the chair in an established Art School pose. The class settles to work.