Put your own
sanctity on the wall beside my martyrdom!"
Esther thought it would be civil on her part to say something at this
point, but Wharton's remarks seemed to be made to no one in particular,
and she was not quite certain that they were meant for her in spite of
the words. He did not look at her. She was used to his peculiar moods
and soliloquies, and had learned to be silent at such times. She sat
silent now, but Catherine, who took greater liberties with him, was
bolder.
"Why can't you paint innocence?" she asked.
"I am going to tell you," he replied, with more quickness of manner. "It
is to be the subject of my last lecture. Ladies, school must close
to-day."
Esther and Catherine glanced at each other. "You are going to send us
away?" asked Catherine in a tone of surprise.
"You must go for the present," answered Wharton. "I mean to tell you the
reason, and then you will see why I can't paint innocence as you can. As
a lecture on art, my life is worth hearing, but don't interrupt the
story or you will lose it. Begin by keeping in your mind that twenty
years ago I was a ragged boy in the streets of Cincinnati. The drawing
master in a public school to which I went, said I had a natural talent
for drawing, and taught me all he knew. Then a little purse was made up
for me and I was sent to Paris. Not yet twenty years old, I found myself
dropped into that great sewer of a city, a shy, ill-clothed, ill-fed,
ill-educated boy, knowing no more of the world above me than a fish
knows of the birds.
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