Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/173

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THE BOND
171

Basil, after lunch, said good-bye to her for a month.

That month Teresa finished modelling Basil's bust. It was the first ambitious thing she had done since her marriage. She was in love with his beauty as she did it—the clear essentially sculptural character of his finely-modelled head, the free, dominant poise of it.

"That's you, Basil—all of you," she said, the day it was finished, after gazing long at it.

"It's a good-looking piece of work," Basil admitted.

And Erhart, who came up for a week to give his opinion on it, pronounced that it had bone.

"Of course one sees that it's a woman's work," he added patronisingly.

"Of course," said Teresa mockingly, "but one is astonished that the dog should dance so well, considering that it was meant to go on all-fours—isn't that it?"

"Something of that sort. Do I hear your Aunt Sophy talking?"

"You will, sooner or later. I am coming round to her point of view."

"You a feministe! There are no young and pretty ones, remember that. Wait till you're thirty, at least."

"Oh, two years of being married to Basil are