"Yes. That we've got to live on something, Caspar and I, as you say;
and since an artist cannot sacrifice his convictions, the sacrifice
must--I mean--I wanted you to know that I have promised to marry Mr.
Mungold."
"Mungold!" Stanwell cried with a sharp note of irony; but her white
look checked it on his lips.
"I know all you are going to say," she murmured, with a kind of
nobleness which moved him even through his sense of its grotesqueness.
"But you must see the distinction, because you first made it clear to
me. I can take money earned in good faith--I can let Caspar live on it.
I can marry Mr. Mungold; because, though his pictures are bad, he does
not prostitute his art."
She began to move away from him slowly, and he followed her in silence
along the frozen path.
When Stanwell re-entered his studio the dusk had fallen. He lit his
lamp and rummaged out some writing-materials. Having found them, he
wrote to Shepson to say that he could not paint Mrs. Van Orley, and did
not care to accept any more orders for the present. He sealed and
stamped the letter and flung it over the banisters for the janitor to
post; then he dragged out his unfinished head of Kate Arran, replaced
it on the easel, and sat down before it with a grim smile.