As these ladies described them the conditions were of the exacting sort which Cornelia's nature craved, and she had her sex-pride in the Synthesis, too, because she had read that women had borne an important part in founding it; the strictest technical training and the freest spirit of artistic endeavor prevailed in a school that owed its existence so largely to them. That was a great point, even if every one of the instructors was a man. She supposed that Mr. Ludlow would have sheltered himself behind this fact if she had used the other to justify herself in going on with art after he had urged that as a woman, she had better not do so. But the last thing Cornelia intended was to justify herself to Mr. Ludlow, and she vehemently wished he would not try to do anything more for her, now. After sleeping upon the facts of their meeting she felt sure that he would not try. She approved of herself for not having asked him to call in parting. She was almost glad that he hardly had given her a chance to do so. It was Saturday night when Cornelia arrived, and she spent Sunday writing home a full account of her adventures to her mother, whom she asked to give Mrs. Barton the note she enclosed, and in looking over her drawings, and trying to decide which she should take to the Synthesis with her. She had a good deal of tacit argument about them with Mr. Ludlow, who persisted in her thoughts after several definitive dismissals; and Monday morning she presented herself with some drawings she had chosen as less ridiculous than some of the others, and hovered with a haughty humility at the door of the little office till the janitor asked her if she would not come in and sit down. He had apparently had official experience of cases like hers; he refused without surprise the drawings which she offered him as her credentials, and said the secretary would be in directly. He did not go so far as to declare his own quality, but he hospitably did what he could to make her feel at home.