"Of course. And, after all, a few inches on to one's nose hardly signifies, does it? not to mention a jaw that no woman ever possessed outside a show. Your drawing puts me in mind of somebody or other's criticism on Pope's translation of Homer--`a very pretty story, Mr Pope, but it is not Homer.' Yours is a very wonderful creation, Mr St. John, but it in no wise resembles the copy." St. John glared. "I thought you said you admired character?" he exclaimed. "So I do; and there is a great deal of character in the original, I consider; but if you wish for a candid opinion, I think your head is simply a masculine monstrosity. But, come, you need not look so angry; we do not win our spurs at the first charge, you know. Must I praise your failures as well as your successes, eh?" "You don't think me quite such a conceited fool, I hope," he said somewhat deprecatingly, though he still looked a little dissatisfied and aggrieved. "I only meant that it wasn't altogether bad for a first attempt." But it was not Jill's intention to flatter. "It isn't altogether _good_ for a first attempt," she said. "You are not very encouraging," he remarked a trifle reproachfully. "Had you been my pupil and I had said so much--" "I should have thought you very disagreeable," she interrupted, laughing. He laughed also; for despite her contrariety her mirth was most infectious, and put him more at ease with her. It was the first glimpse of her natural self that she had vouchsafed him, and he liked it infinitely better than the half-aggressive dignity she assumed in her capacity of teacher. "Do you think," he ventured again after a pause, and with a decided increase of diffidence, "that I am likely to be any good at it?" Jill took up a pencil and penknife with the intent to sharpen the former but laid them down again suddenly and looked him squarely in the face. "If you mean have you any talent for art?" she said coolly, "I am afraid I cannot give you much encouragement. You have a liking for it, and, I should say, possess a certain amount of perseverance; therefore in time you ought to turn out some fairly decent work, but you have not talent." He looked displeased, and fell to contemplating his work anew from the distinctly irritating standpoint of its not being quite such a success as he had deemed it. "You are very candid," he remarked, not altogether gratefully; "I suppose I should feel obliged to you. But, to be frank in my turn, you would do well not to be quite so candid with your pupils; you will never get on if you are." She laughed, and shrugged her shoulders with a careless, half-bitter gesture. "Your advice is rather superfluous," she answered; "I am not likely to get any pupils." "Why not?" he queried. "You have one."