None of the artists had seen the picture, and Bently was
quite carried away by his admiration of it.
"By Jove! Fenton," he said, "I didn't know you had it in you. It's
perfectly stunning. But it's beastly wicked," he added. "Perhaps that's
the reason it's so good."
"Come," Fenton said with a laugh, "that sounds quite like the old Pagan
days."
"But how in the dickens," Tom went on, "did you get Mrs. Herman to pose
for you?"
"Great Heavens!" ejaculated Fenton, "don't say that to anybody else. I
had no end of studies of her, made long ago; but I didn't suppose I had
followed them closely enough for it to be recognized."
"You don't mean," Tom returned, "that that side and arm are done from
old studies!"
Fenton had a delicate dislike to literal falsehood. It was not a
question of morality directly, but one of taste. Albeit, since taste is
simply morality remote from the springs of action, it perhaps came to
much the same thing in the end. He felt now, however, that the time for
the selfish indulgence of his individual whims was past, and that he
owed to Ninitta the grace of a downright and hearty falsehood.
"Why, of course," he said, "I had one or two models to help me out; but
the inspiration came from the old studies."
"And she didn't pose for you?" Tom persisted incredulously.
"Pose for me?" echoed Fenton, impatiently.
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