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 not wild beasts. At least, I’m a human being.”

“And he’s a beast—I see.”

“I wish I were a man,” said Nina. “There he is again. His nose goes up another half inch every time he passes me. What’s he got to be so superior about? If I were a man I’d certainly pass the time of day with a fellow-creature if I were condemned to spend from ten to forty minutes with it six days out of the seven.”

“I expect he’s afraid you’d want to marry him. My brother Cecil says men are always horribly frightened about that.”

“Your brother Cecil!” said Nina scornfully. “Yes; that’s just the sort of thing anybody’s brother Cecil would say. He simply looks down on me because I go third. He only goes second himself, too. Here’s the train”

The two Art students climbed into their third-class carriage, and their talk, leaving Nina’s fellow-traveller, washed like a babbling brook about the feet of great rocks, busied itself with the old Italian Masters, painting as a mission, and the aims of Art—presently running through flatter country and lapping round perspective, foreshortening, tones, values