Golda once met Hetty coming down the stairs. She told her she was a dirty slut and was not to show her face inside the house again. A few days later she saw her open the front door and slip out. In her anger she informed Jacob of the danger to Mendel, and Jacob went up to the studio. "I will not have that harlot in my house," he said. "She is not a harlot," replied Mendel rather shakily, for, though his father's power had dwindled, yet he was still a figure of authority. "She is a harlot and a daughter of a harlot, and I will not have her in my house." "She is a model, and I must have models, as I have tried to explain to you again and again. I am allowed money for models. I must have models, just as you must have skins." "Then there are other models. I know this girl, what she is after, and she will ruin you." "Neither she nor anyone else in the whole world could ruin me," said Mendel, "for I am an artist, and while I have my art I ask nothing outside it." "Don't argue with me!" shouted Jacob. "I will not have that drab in my house." Mendel had a great respect and regard for his father. He was silent, and Jacob went downstairs, satisfied that he had asserted himself. He said to Golda:-- "They will blow the boy's head off his shoulder with the fuss they make of him. I know how to take him down a peg or two." "Don't go too far," said Golda. "It would be a black day for me if he went away and was ashamed of us." "If I saw that he was ashamed of you," replied Jacob, "I would thrash him within an inch of his life. Ashamed of you, among all the dirt and trumped-up people he goes among!" However, Hetty still came to the studio and there were frequent explosions, until at last Mendel, intent on the new independence he had won, declared that he could bear it no longer, and he arranged with Issy to take the top floor of his house and to turn that into a studio. This compromise was successful, and pleased both parties: Golda was happy to be relieved from further friction and Mendel was glad to be away, for he knew that his doings must hurt her, and that he hated. Yet he could see no way out of it. He was done for ever with the old simplicity of his untutored painting in her kitchen. Art was no longer a pure and hardly-won joy. It was a trade, like any other, and, like any other, it had its sordid aspect, and, to compensate for that, it was a career and could also be a triumph. These things he did not expect his mother to understand. He had Mitchell to talk to now, Mitchell to whom to impart the burden upon his soul, and Mitchell and he were to work together and to give to the world such art as it had never seen since the primitives.