No More Learning

Then the boy came
back, and at their very second meeting had told her that he loved her.
Then he had----But there was no end to the things he had done. He
had given her his time and his powers. He had spoken to her of
Art, housekeeping, technique, teacups, the abuse of pickles as a
stimulant,--that was rude,--sable hair-brushes,--he had given her the
best in her stock,--she used them daily; he had given her advice that
she profited by, and now and again--a look. Such a look! The look of a
beaten hound waiting for the word to crawl to his mistress's feet. In
return she had given him nothing whatever, except--here she brushed her
mouth against the open-work sleeve of her nightgown--the privilege
of kissing her once. And on the mouth, too. Disgraceful! Was that not
enough, and more than enough? and if it was not, had he not cancelled
the debt by not writing and--probably kissing other girls? "Maisie,
you'll catch a chill. Do go and lie down," said the wearied voice of her
companion. "I can't sleep a wink with you at the window. "

Maisie shrugged her shoulders and did not answer.
She was reflecting
on the meannesses of Dick, and on other meannesses with which he had
nothing to do. The moonlight would not let her sleep. It lay on the
skylight of the studio across the road in cold silver; she stared at it
intently and her thoughts began to slide one into the other. The shadow
of the big bell-handle in the wall grew short, lengthened again, and
faded out as the moon went down behind the pasture and a hare came
limping home across the road. Then the dawn-wind washed through the
upland grasses, and brought coolness with it, and the cattle lowed by
the drought-shrunk river. Maisie's head fell forward on the window-sill,
and the tangle of black hair covered her arms.

"Maisie, wake up. You'll catch a chill. "

"Yes, dear; yes, dear. " She staggered to her bed like a wearied child,
and as she buried her face in the pillows she muttered, "I think--I
think--But he ought to have written. "

Day brought the routine of the studio, the smell of paint and
turpentine, and the monotone wisdom of Kami, who was a leaden artist,
but a golden teacher if the pupil were only in sympathy with him. Maisie
was not in sympathy that day, and she waited impatiently for the end of
the work.

She knew when it was coming; for Kami would gather his black alpaca
coat into a bunch behind him, and, with faded flue eyes that saw neither
pupils nor canvas, look back into the past to recall the history of one
Binat. "You have all done not so badly," he would say. "But you shall
remember that it is not enough to have the method, and the art, and
the power, nor even that which is touch, but you shall have also
the conviction that nails the work to the wall. Of the so many I
taught,"--here the students would begin to unfix drawing-pins or get
their tubes together,--"the very so many that I have taught, the best
was Binat.