couldn't of course see the thing in detail, but I could see them make
someone's fortune--I don't mean their own. There was something in
them for a waistcoat-maker, an hotel-keeper or a soap-vendor. I
could imagine "We always use it" pinned on their bosoms with the
greatest effect; I had a vision of the promptitude with which they
would launch a table d'hote.

Mrs. Monarch sat still, not from pride but from shyness, and
presently her husband said to her: "Get up my dear and show how
smart you are." She obeyed, but she had no need to get up to show
it. She walked to the end of the studio, and then she came back
blushing, with her fluttered eyes on her husband. I was reminded of
an incident I had accidentally had a glimpse of in Paris--being with
a friend there, a dramatist about to produce a play--when an actress
came to him to ask to be intrusted with a part. She went through her
paces before him, walked up and down as Mrs. Monarch was doing. Mrs.
Monarch did it quite as well, but I abstained from applauding. It
was very odd to see such people apply for such poor pay. She looked
as if she had ten thousand a year. Her husband had used the word
that described her: she was, in the London current jargon,
essentially and typically "smart." Her figure was, in the same order
of ideas, conspicuously and irreproachably "good." For a woman of
her age her waist was surprisingly small; her elbow moreover had the
orthodox crook. She held her head at the conventional angle; but why
did she come to ME? She ought to have tried on jackets at a big
shop. I feared my visitors were not only destitute, but "artistic"--
which would be a great complication. When she sat down again I
thanked her, observing that what a draughtsman most valued in his
model was the faculty of keeping quiet.