The other fellows, Lawson, Clutton, Flanagan, chaffed him
about her.
"You be careful, my lad," they said, "she's in love with you."
"Oh, what nonsense," he laughed.
The thought that Miss Price could be in love with anyone was preposterous.
It made him shudder when he thought of her uncomeliness, the bedraggled
hair and the dirty hands, the brown dress she always wore, stained and
ragged at the hem: he supposed she was hard up, they were all hard up, but
she might at least be clean; and it was surely possible with a needle and
thread to make her skirt tidy.
Philip began to sort his impressions of the people he was thrown in
contact with. He was not so ingenuous as in those days which now seemed so
long ago at Heidelberg, and, beginning to take a more deliberate interest
in humanity, he was inclined to examine and to criticise. He found it
difficult to know Clutton any better after seeing him every day for three
months than on the first day of their acquaintance. The general impression
at the studio was that he was able; it was supposed that he would do great
things, and he shared the general opinion; but what exactly he was going
to do neither he nor anybody else quite knew. He had worked at several
studios before Amitrano's, at Julian's, the Beaux Arts, and MacPherson's,
and was remaining longer at Amitrano's than anywhere because he found
himself more left alone.
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