Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/154

146 "The glamour has departed from Bohemia," she said, looking sadly at her china. "A teacup is only a teacup now, and it is nothing more."

The studio looked dingy and full of cobwebs. The marmalade was sticky.

Anne looked at her pictures in disgust. Self-expression! It was there. She had succeeded in putting on canvas something of her inner view of things. Self—it had always been herself! That was in the furnishings of the room, in the painted faces on the walls. Oh, if she could only escape from the loathsome closed circle!

She flung herself upon the sofa, burying her face in a pine pillow. Its pungent odours brought back the old child-days.

"You have succeeded," she murmured, "and I'd like to know of what consequence your self-expression is, anyway!"

Outside was the twitter of nesting sparrows. Her spirits beat against the enclosing bars like the wings of an imprisoned bird. Presently she lifted her face and laughed.