You can learn a lot posing among that set – more than at the pictures’.

‘Did they used to come in while you were sitting?’

‘They asked permission. Women painters are best. Did you know that women painted as well? They pay a girl to pose for them in the nude. I can’t think why they don’t just stand in front of a mirror. I could understand it if they used a man as a model’.

‘But they do’, said Ginia.

‘I don’t say they don’t’, said Amelia, stopping in front of the door and giving a wink. ‘But they pay some models double. Bless you, variety’s the spice of life’.

Ginia asked her why she did not come and call for her sometimes, and then went homeward alone, treading on the reflections she made on the asphalt road which had nearly dried in the warm night air. ‘She chatters too much about her own affairs; I suppose it’s being older’, thought Ginia, feeling happy. ‘If I led her sort of life, I’d be more discreet’. Ginia was a little disappointed when she realized the days were slipping by and Amelia had not called on her. It was clear enough that she had not been trying to make up to her that evening, which implies – reflected Ginia – that she tells everything to everybody and really is stupid. I expect she regards me as an infant in arms, ready to believe anything. One evening Ginia told a number of other girls that she had seen a picture in a shop for which Amelia had been the model.

They all believed it but what Ginia meant was that she had recognized her by her build, because artists intentionally disguise the face when the model is in the nude. ‘Do you imagine they’re as considerate as that?’ said Rosa, jeering at her for her simplicity. ‘I would be only too pleased if an artist painted me and paid me into the bargain’, said Clara. Then they proceeded to discuss Amelia’s looks, and Clara’s brother, who had been in the boat with them, claimed that he was more handsome in the nude. They all laughed and Ginia said, ‘An artist wouldn’t paint her if she wasn’t well set up’, but they ignored her remark. She felt humiliated that evening and could have wept with rage; but the days went by and the next time she met Amelia – getting off a tram – they walked along together, chatting. Ginia was more smartly dressed than Amelia, who went along carrying her hat and showed all her teeth when she laughed.

The following afternoon Amelia came to pick her up. She walked up to the open door out of the heat and Ginia spied her from the darkness inside, without being seen herself. Once the shutters were thrown open, they took their ease and Amelia, fanning herself with her hat, looked round her. ‘I like the idea of an open door’, she remarked. ‘You’re lucky. You can’t at my place because we’re on the ground floor’. Then she glanced into the other room where Severino was sleeping and said, ‘At our place it’s a regular bear-garden. Five of us – not to mention the cats – in a couple of rooms’. They went out together when they were ready and Ginia said, ‘When you’re fed up with your ground floor, come and join me, you can have some peace here’. She was trying to make Amelia understand that she wasn’t meaning to criticize her people in any way but was just glad that the two of them were getting on together. Amelia, however, did not say either yes or no and treated her to a coffee on the way to the tram. Ginia did not see her the next day or the day after that, but she came up one evening, hatless, sat down on the sofa and with a laugh asked for a cigarette.