you decided not to go out. I'm dead, myself. A kimono for
the rest of the evening."

Fanny seemed scarcely to hear her. With a nod she left
Ella, and entered her own room. There she wasted no time.
She threw her hat and coat on the bed. Her suitcase was on
the baggage stand. She turned on all the lights, swung the
closed suitcase up to the table, shoved the table against
the wall, up-ended the suitcase so that its leather side
presented a smooth surface, and propped a firm sheet of
white cardboard against the impromptu rack. She brought her
chair up close, fumbled in her bag for the pens she had just
purchased. Her eyes were on the blank white surface of the
paper. The table was the kind that has a sub-shelf. It
prevented Fanny from crossing her legs under it, and that
bothered her. While she fitted her pens, and blocked her
paper, she kept on barking her shins in unconscious
protest against the uncomfortable conditions under which she
must work.

She sat staring at the paper now, after having marked it off
into blocks, with a pencil. She got up, and walked across
the room, aimlessly, and stood there a moment, and came
back. She picked up a thread on the floor. Sat down again.
Picked up her pencil, rolled it a moment in her palms, then,
catching her toes behind either foreleg of her chair, in an
attitude that was as workmanlike as it was ungraceful, she
began to draw, nervously, tentatively at first, but gaining
in firmness and assurance as she went on.