'So you work in the men's studio?' 'Does that shock you?' 'No, nothing shocks me.' 'In the studio a woman puts off her sex. There's no sex in art.' 'I quite agree with you. There's no sex in art, and a woman would be very foolish to let anything stand between her and her art.' 'I'm glad you think that. I've made great sacrifices for painting.' 'What sacrifices?' 'I'll tell you one of these days when I know you better.' 'Will you?' The conversation paused a moment, and Mildred said: 'How wonderful it is here. Those pines, that sky, one hears the silence; it enters into one's very bones. It is a pity one cannot paint silence.' 'Millet painted silence. "The Angelus" is full of silence, the air trembles with silence and sunset.' 'But the silence of the moonlight is more awful, it really is very awful, I'm afraid.' 'Afraid of what? there's nothing to be afraid of. You asked me just now if I believed in Daveau's, I didn't like to say; I had only just been introduced to you; but it seems to me that I know you better now... Daveau's is a curse. It is the sterilisation of art. You must give up Daveau's, and come and work here.' 'I'm afraid it would make no difference. Elsie and Cissy have spent years here, and what they do does not amount to much. They wander from method to method, abandoning each in turn. I am utterly discouraged, and made up my mind to give up painting.' 'What are you going to do?' 'I don't know. One of these days I shall find out my true vocation.' 'You're young, you are beautiful---' 'No, I'm not beautiful, but there are times when I look nice.' 'Yes, indeed there are. Those hands, how white they are in the moonlight.' He took her hands. 'Why do you trouble and rack your soul about painting? A woman's hands are too beautiful for a palette and brushes.' The words were on her tongue to ask him if he did not admire Rose's hands equally, but remembering the place, the hour, and the fact of her having made his acquaintance only a few hours before, she thought it more becoming to withdraw her hands, and to say: 'The others do not seem to be coming back. We had better return.' They moved out of the shadows of the pines, and stood looking down the sandy pathway. 'How filmy and grey those top branches, did you ever see anything so delicate?' 'I never saw anything like this before. This is primeval.... I used to walk a good deal with a friend of mine in St. James' Park.' 'The park where the ducks are, and a little bridge. Your friend was not an artist.' 'Yes, he was, and a very clever artist too.' 'Then he admired the park because you were with him.' 'Perhaps that had something to do with it. But the park is very beautiful.' 'I don't think I care much about cultivated nature.' 'Don't you like a garden?' 'Yes; a disordered garden, a garden that has been let run wild.'