In the hot, stuffy "life-room" at the Slade next day Molly teased with ill-judged bread-crumbs an arm hopelessly ill drawn, and chattered softly to Nina, who in the Saturday solitude had drawn her easel behind her friend's "donkey." "It's all very well here when you first come in, but when once you _are_ warm, oh dear, how warm you are! Why do models want such boiling rooms? Why can't they be soaked in alum or myrrh or something to harden their silly skins so that they won't mind a breath of decent air? And I believe the model's deformed--she certainly is from where I am. Oh, look at my arm! I ask you a little--look at the beastly thing. Foreshortened like this it looks like a fillet of veal with a pound of sausages tied on to it for a hand. Oh, my own and only Nina--save the sinking ship!" "It ought to go more like _that_," Nina said with indicative brush, "and don't keep on rubbing out so fiercely. You'll get paralysed with bread--it's a disease, you know. I heard Tonks telling you so only the other day----" "It's rather a good phrase: I wonder where he got it? He was rather nice that day," said Molly. "Oh, this arm! It's no good--I believe the model's moved--I tell you I _must_." More bread. Nina re-absorbed in her canvas. "Yours is coming well. What's the matter with you to-day? You're very mousy. Has the 'stranger who might' been scowling more than usual? Or have you got a headache? I'm sure this atmosphere's enough to make you. Did you see him this morning? Have you fainted at his feet yet? Has he relented in the matter of umbrellas? I'm sure he can't have passed the whole week without some act of grumpiness." Nina leaned back and looked through half-shut eyes at the model's beautiful form and stupid face. "I went down in the same carriage with him on Thursday," she said slowly. "You did? Did he rush into the third class, where angels like himself ought to fear to tread?" "There was a fog. Thirds all full, and seconds too. The guard bundled us both in, and the train started--and it took three or four hours to get down." "Any one else in the carriage?" "Not so much as a mouse." "What _did_ you do?" "Do? What could I do? We sat in opposite corners as far as we could get from each other, exchanging occasional glances of mutual detestation for about an hour and a half. He knocked me down and walked on me once, and took his hat off very politely and beg-pardoningly, but he never said a word. He didn't even say he thought I was the door-mat. And then some cabbages of his fell off the seat." "Sure they weren't thistles?" "Vegetables of some sort. And I said: 'You've dropped your----whatever they were.' And he just bowed again in a thank-you-very-much-but-I'm- sure-I-don't-know-what-business-it-is-of-yours sort of way. Do leave that bread alone." Molly, lost in the interest of the recital, was crumbling the bread as though the floor of the life-room were the natural haunt of doves and sparrows. "Well?" she said.