MISS REED: "I will free my mind with neatness and despatch. I
simply wish to go over the whole affair, from Alfred to Omaha; and
you've got to let me talk as much slang and nonsense as I want. And
then I'll skip all the details I can. Will you?"

MISS SPAULDING, with impatient patience: "Oh, I suppose so!"

MISS REED: "That's very sweet of you, though you don't look it.
Now, where was I? Oh, yes, do you think it was forth-putting at all,
to ask him if he would give me the lessons?"

MISS SPAULDING: "It depends upon why you asked him."

MISS REED: "I asked him from--from--Let me see; I asked him because-
-from--Yes, I say it boldly; I asked him from an enthusiasm for art,
and a sincere wish to learn the use of oil, as he called it. Yes!"

MISS SPAULDING: "Are you sure?"

MISS REED: "Sure? Well, we will say that I am, for the sake of
argument. And, having secured this basis, the question is whether I
wasn't bound to offer him pay at the end, and whether he wasn't wrong
to take my doing so in dudgeon."

MISS SPAULDING: "Yes, I think he was wrong. And the terms of his
refusal were very ungentlemanly. He ought to apologize most amply
and humbly." At a certain expression in Miss Reed's face, she adds,
with severity: "Unless you're keeping back the main point. You
usually do. Are you?"