“No, you mistake me.” She shook her head. “I mean that you must come and stay, of course. I shall see that you have a comfortable room which you may turn into a studio, as you like, or set us to pose any other place you please. We might house a dozen more than we do without crowding, and there certainly is no sense in you riding back and forth every day between Beulah Land and your lodging in town. Do you know what the country heat is like in summer? The very sight of a corn field can make you gasp for air.”

Casey Troy bowed. “I accept your kindness without protest. But I shan’t mind the heat; I shall enjoy every hour of my days at Beulah Land!” He bowed again, smiling, and she smiled too, although she felt a vein in her temple begin to throb and knew that it was from more than anticipation at entertaining a pleasant, casual guest.

10

And so Casey Troy came, and was comfortably settled into a room at the back of the second floor. It was a large, nearly square room with three windows, through one of which he might step out to a small private balcony framed and shaded by wisteria vines. The balcony had been built for the pleasure and convenience of Leon’s great-aunt Prudence, his father Arnold’s paternal aunt, who had been a maiden lady with some weakness of the chest, it was said, who had lived there until she died in 1793.

Now that Casey was there and ready to begin his work, Nell and Penelope, both of whom had privately itched with irritation at Sarah’s formerly putting off Mr. Troy’s visit to them, protested that they were “not eager to be first.” Each declared herself to be an impossibly difficult and unrewarding subject for a painter and hinted that Mr. Troy must learn all he could of the particular tricks of light and shadow at Beulah Land before they could feel easy on his model stand. And so, Selma and Pauline were the first to sit to him, and they sat more or less at the same time.

He used no model stand, nor did he suggest a way for them to dress, hoping by not doing so to gain an insight into them. He was pleased when Selma invited him to come into their apartment rather than that they go to his. For one thing, he knew that Selma was an original and something of a recluse, and he hoped to find her easier in her own quarters than she would likely be in his neutral studio room. Too, her room had its main light from the north, and although he set less value on this than other painters might, he was happy to use it when it was offered, because in it he was better able to judge color tone.