Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/118

110 Mrs. Kent glanced at Anne's flushed face, and renewed her resolve to help this young man win his battle. Helen opened her eyes wide at the sound of the old child-name, then closed them again. After all, it was natural that he should use it.

"Well," said Anne, almost forgetting her own confusion in her enjoyment of Helen's surprise, "you made a good beginning. I am sorry to see you taking up a theory of art that seems to me cowardly. Your idealism shirks the battle with things as they are."

"But you are no more a realist than I am."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Howard, laying down his brush and looking at the pictures on the walls, "that you put into those faces all sorts of heroic emotions that the people never had. You make the wrinkles deeper than they really are, and you idealize the feelings that they stand for. Your people all look hungry, and not for bread and butter."