She stirred gently in her chair.
"My friend," she said, "I have been your pupil for two years. You have
watched all the uncouth creations of my brain come sprawling out upon
the canvas, and besides, we have been companions. Yet the fact remains
that you do not understand me at all. No, not one little bit. It is
extraordinary."
"It is," he replied, "the one humiliation of my life. My opportunities
have been immense, and my failure utter. If I had been your companion
only, and not your master, I might very well have been content to
accept you for what you seem. But there have been times, Anna, when
your work has startled me. Ill-drawn, without method or sense of
proportion, you have put wonderful things on to canvas, have drawn
them out of yourself, notwithstanding your mechanical inefficiency.
God knows how you did it. You are utterly baffling."
She laughed at him easily and mirthfully.
"Dear friend," she said, "do not magnify me into a physiological
problem. I should only disappoint you terribly some day. I think I
know where I am puzzling you now----"
"Then for Heaven's sake be merciful," he exclaimed. "Lift up one
corner of the curtain for me."
"Very well. You shall tell me if I am wrong. You see me here, an
admitted failure in the object to which I have devoted two years of my
life. You know that I am practically destitute, without means or any
certain knowledge of where my next meal is coming from. I speak
frankly, because you also know that no possible extremity would induce
me to accept help from any living person. You notice that I have
recently spent ten francs on a box of the best Russian cigarettes, and
that there are roses upon my table. You observe that I am, as usual,
fairly cheerful, and moderately amiable. It surprises you. You do not
understand, and you would like to. Very well! I will try to help you."
Her hand hung over the side of her chair nearest to him. He looked at
it eagerly, but made no movement to take it. During all their long
comradeship he had never so much as ventured to hold her fingers. This
was David Courtlaw, whose ways, too, had never been very different
from the ways of other men as regards her sex.
"You see, it comes after all," she continued, "from certain original
convictions which have become my religion. Rather a magniloquent term,
perhaps, but what else am I to say? One of these is that the most
absolutely selfish thing in the world is to give way to depression, to
think of one's troubles at all except of how to overcome them. I spend
many delightful hours thinking of the pleasant and beautiful things of
life. I decline to waste a single second even in considering the ugly
ones. Do you know that this becomes a habit?"