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“Enchanting!” Maude sounded breathless and amazed. Lucy could almost hear her eyelashes fluttering. Maude did enchanting very well. No doubt her easy raptures served her well at parties.

What an enchanting pudding! What an enchanting observation about the weather!

“The picture grows more gorgeous by the hour,” Maude continued in the same breathy tone. At that, Lucy glanced up. Was Maude so weak-minded she couldn’t see that Lucy had begun afresh? But Maude wasn’t even looking at her easel. She was rolling her eyes at Susan, who was taking advantage of Maude’s absence to add a few brushstrokes to her own picture.

“Look at Susan’s painting face!” Maude’s voice became conspiratorial as she tapped Lucy on the shoulder. “Isn’t it fearsome?”

Defeated, Lucy let her right hand drop into her lap. Maude would linger until Lucy gave way. Best to get it over with. Lucy considered Susan for a long moment. She was handling her exquisite French paintbrush gingerly, as though it were a long-stemmed rose.

The other girls owned such beautiful brushes! Not to mention shining palette knives, japanned sketching boxes, superfine papers, and paint boxes filled with hundreds of colors, oils, and varnishes. Sometimes the sight made her heart twist. All instruction in the Academy was gratuitous, but students supplied their own materials.

Every tool Lucy used was old and plain. But so what? You couldn’t buy technique. It didn’t matter if your paintbrushes came from France.

Susan’s lips were thinned into a grim line.

“Her face is not fearsome in the least,” Lucy said at last. “She’s concentrating.”

Try it sometime.

“She should concentrate like this,” said Maude, her face assuming a dreamy expression. “That’s nicer, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.” Lucy shrugged. “You could be a Visitor in the School of Painting Face.”

“Laugh if you will,” Maude said with a sniff. “But no one wants to commission a portrait painter who looks an absolute ogre at the easel.”

Lucy frowned at the barb. Maude knew that she—not Susan—aspired to a career in portraiture. So, Maude saw her as an ogre, did she? Well, Maude’s was one commission she wouldn’t mind losing.

“There’s a spot of charcoal on your collar,” she rejoined, turning back to her easel and raising her chalk stone. “I do hope it comes out.”

That did the trick. Maude’s hands flew to her throat. She spun on her heel to attend to this sartorial disaster. As the sound of footsteps faded down the hall, Lucy absently plucked a bit of cat fur from the folds of her skirt. She sewed her dresses herself, using remnants of the rich fabrics left over from Aunt Marian’s days as a theatrical costumer for the most famous actresses in London. The results were unusual but lent her an aura of eccentricity, which was ultimately preferable to the alternative: that she arrive at the Academy drably turned out in cotton ready-mades, the uniform of the lower middle class. Unthinkable. Instead, she dressed boldly and didn’t bother with the white pinafores favored by girls like Maude, who attended classes in pretty, fashionable gowns. The profusion of textures and colors hid specks of paint, chalk, and charcoal, more or less. Her dear old tomcat, Mr. Malkin, shed fine gray hairs that proved more difficult to disguise. But she’d rather find herself forced to pluck hairs from her skirts than forbear from stroking her most beloved companion.

Art—and life—were messy. Let the Maudes of the world waste their time worrying about spots.

She’d nearly lost herself in her work—sweeping her brush fluidly over the chalked lines—when she sensed a new disturbance from a similar quarter. Susan had pushed back her chair. She was moving toward the door, curious, no doubt, as to Maude’s whereabouts.

Drat it. This next step was crucial. Any infelicitous stroke at this stage would bear out in the finished picture. Lucy bit her lip with annoyance and kept on determinedly. If she’d arrived at the studio earlier, she would have set up her easel on the other side of the room, where the angle was just as promising and the chance of interruption minimal. But of course, Gwen Burgess had arrived first and claimed the better spot. Gwen was tall, fine boned, effortlessly elegant. Last year, she had won the Gold Medal in the Schools’ landscape competition. Students and Visitors alike fawned in her presence, but she ignored their attentions. Lucy’s best friend, Kate, had made repeated overtures, all rebuffed.

She’s disagreeable, certainly, but she’s Augustus Burgess’s sister! Kate had had the good grace to appear sheepish as she answered Lucy’s questioning look following a third failed attempt to entice Gwen on a sketching trip to the British Museum.

That’s not the only reason I want to befriend her, she’d added hastily. She’s terribly interesting, and her brushwork is divine. But, Lucy, if we were friends with Gwen she might invite us to one of Augustus Burgess’s salons. Just imagine!

Augustus Burgess’s celebrity wasn’t limited to the pages of the Art Journal. His bold, large-scale figure paintings were invariably lauded in all the papers, touted as “the talk of the clubs.” He had been the youngest artist to exhibit at the Royal Academy since J. M. W. Turner, and he’d recently been elected Academician. He hosted salons where models sat, in various draperies, for the lucky painters at his legendary studio-house, itself a marvel of aesthetic interiors. Every March, on Studio Sunday, crowds crushed into his studio to preview the pictures he planned to submit for the Summer Exhibition.

Lucy doubted Gwen Burgess would ever extend an invitation to her brother’s salon. Gwen was more than disagreeable. She seemed to suffer human interaction.

At this very moment, the Visitor in Painting, Mr. Barrett, was hovering around Gwen’s easel offering an energetic critique. Lucy would do almost anything for that kind of consideration, but Gwen looked grave, even pained.

Stop staring at bloody Gwen Burgess.

Gwen’s face was a smooth oval, like a Renaissance Madonna. Nothing like the model’s.

Lucy blinked and lowered her hand before her distraction could destroy her work. Was it lack of sleep that made it so hard to focus?

She dropped her brush into a pot of water and glanced again at Gwen. Mr. Barrett had buzzed away. Gwen was painting with quick, sure strokes, eyes darting between her canvas and the model. Everything came easily to her.

“Lucy!” It was Susan, tapping her shoulder. “How enchanting!”

Lucy stiffened. But suddenly, a reprieve was granted. Maude burst through the door, ablaze with excitement.