Betty, who never lacked courage, took charcoal in hand and advanced quite boldly to the easel next to her own.
How she envied the quality of the drawing she saw there. But envy does not teach mercy. The little sketch that Betty left on the corner of the drawing was quite as faithful, and far more cruel, than the one on her own paper. Then she went on to the next easel. The few students who were chatting to the model looked curiously at her and giggled among themselves.
When the rest was over and the model had reassumed, quite easily and certainly, that pose of the uplifted arms which looked so difficult, the students trooped back and the two girls--Betty's enemies, as she bitterly felt--returned to their easels. They looked at their drawings, they looked at each other, and they looked at Betty. And when they looked at her they smiled.
"Well done!" the girl next her said softly. "For a tenderfoot you hit back fairly straight. I guess you'll do!"
"You're very kind," said Betty haughtily.
"Don't you get your quills up," said the girl. "I hit first, but you hit hardest. I don't know you,--but I want to."
She smiled so queer yet friendly a smile that Betty's haughtiness had to dissolve in an answering smile.
"My name's Betty Desmond," she said. "I wonder why you wanted to hit a man when he was down."
"My!" said the girl, "how was I to surmise about you being down? You looked dandy enough--fit to lick all creation."
"I've never been in a studio before," said Betty, fixing fresh paper.
"My!" said the girl again. "Turn the faucet off now. The model don't like us to whisper. Can't stand the draught."
So Betty was silent, working busily. But next day she was greeted with friendly nods and she had some one to speak to in the rest-intervals.
On the third day she was asked to a studio party by the girl who had fanned her on the stairs. "And bring your friend with you," she said.
But Betty's friend had a headache that day. Betty went alone and came home full of the party.
"She's got such a jolly studio," she said; "ever so high up,--and busts and casts and things. Everyone was so nice to me you can't think: it was just like what one hears of Girton Cocoa parties. We had tea--such weak tea, Paula, it could hardly crawl out of the teapot! We had it out of green basins. And the loveliest cakes! There were only two chairs, so some of us sat on the sommier and the rest on the floor."