Once, wind-caught, or wandering into unaccustomed heights, high in the blue a white butterfly glimmered, still mounting to infinite altitudes, fluttering, breeze-blown, a silvery speck adrift.
"Like a poor soul aspiring," she thought listlessly, watching with dark eyes over which the lids dropped lazily at moments, only to lift again as her gaze reverted to the man above.
She thought about him, too; she usually did--about his niceness to her, his never-to-be-forgotten kindness; her own gratitude to him for her never-to-be-forgotten initiation.
It seemed scarcely possible that two months had passed since her novitiate--that two months ago she still knew nothing of the people, the friendships, the interest, the surcease from loneliness and hopeless apathy, that these new conditions had brought to her.
Had she known Louis Neville only two months?
Did all this new buoyancy date from two short months' experience--this quickened interest in life, this happy development of intelligence so long starved, this unfolding of youth in the atmosphere of youth?
She found it difficult to realise, lying there so contentedly, so happily, following, with an interest and appreciation always developing, the progress of the work.
Already, to herself, she could interpret much that she saw in this new world.

Cant phrases, bits of studio lore, artists' patter, their ways of looking at things, their manners of expression, their mannerisms, their little vanities, their ideas, ideals, aspirations, were fast becoming familiar to her.

Also she was beginning to notice and secretly to reflect on their generic characteristics--their profoundly serious convictions concerning themselves and their art modified by surface individualities; their composite lack of humour--exceptions like Ogilvy and Annan, and even Neville only proving the rule; their simplicity, running the entire gamut from candour to stupidity; their patience which was half courage, half a capacity for suffering; and, in the latter, more woman-like than like a man.
Simplicity, courage, lack of humour--those appeared to be the fundamentals characterising the ensemble--supplemented by the extremes of restless intelligence and grim conservatism.
And the whole fabric seemed to be founded not on industry but on impulse born of sentiment.

In this new, busy, inspiring, delightful world logic became a synthesis erected upon some inceptive absurdity, carried solemnly to a picturesque and erroneous conclusion.
She had been aware, in stage folk, of the tendency to sentimental impulse; and she again discovered it in this new world, in a form slightly modified by the higher average of reasoning power.

In both professions the heart played the dominant part in creator and creation.
The exceptions to the rule were the few in either profession who might be called distinguished.
Neville had once said to her: "Nothing that amounts to anything in art is ever done accidentally or merely because the person who creates it loves to do it." She was thinking of this, now, as she lay there watching him.
He had added: "Enthusiasm is excellent while you're dressing for breakfast; but good pictures are painted in cold blood.