The Lion's Share by Arnold Bennett
page 130 of 434 (29%)
page 130 of 434 (29%)
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The next day, after a studio lunch which contained too much starch and was
deficient in nitrogen, Miss Ingate, putting on her hat and jacket, said with a caustic gesture: "Well, I must be off to my life class. And much good may it do me!" The astonishing creature had apparently begun existence again, and begun it on the plane of art, but this did not prevent the observer within her from taking the same attitude towards her second career as she had taken towards her first. Nothing seemed more meet for Miss Ingate's ironic contemplation than the daily struggle for style and beauty in the academies of the Quarter. Audrey made no reply. The morning had been unusually silent, giving considerable scope for Miss Ingate's faculty for leaving well alone. "I suppose you aren't coming out?" added Miss Ingate. "No. I went out a bit this morning. You know I have my French lesson in twenty minutes." "Of course." Miss Ingate seized her apparatus and departed. The instant she was alone Audrey began in haste to change into all her best clothes, which were black, and which the Quarter seldom saw. Fashionably arrayed, she sat down and wrote a note to Madame Schmitt, her French instructress, to say that she had been suddenly called away on urgent business, and asking her nevertheless to count the time as a lesson given. This done, she put her credit notes and her cheque-book into her handbag, and, leaving the note |
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