made of the establishment, and Mrs. Monarch hinted that it never
would have struck her he had sat for them. "Now the drawings you
make from US, they look exactly like us," she reminded me, smiling
in triumph; and I recognised that this was indeed just their
defect. When I drew the Monarchs I couldn't anyhow get away from
them--get into the character I wanted to represent; and I hadn't
the least desire my model should be discoverable in my picture.
Miss Churm never was, and Mrs. Monarch thought I hid her, very
properly, because she was vulgar; whereas if she was lost it was
only as the dead who go to heaven are lost--in the gain of an angel
the more.

By this time I had got a certain start with "Rutland Ramsay," the
first novel in the great projected series; that is I had produced a
dozen drawings, several with the help of the Major and his wife,
and I had sent them in for approval. My understanding with the
publishers as I have already hinted, had been that I was to be left
to do my work, in this particular case, as I liked, with the whole
book committed to me; but my connexion with the rest of the series
was only contingent. There were moments when, frankly, it WAS a
comfort to have the real thing under one's hand for there were
characters in "Rutland Ramsay" that were very much like it. There
were people presumably as erect as the Major and women of as good a
fashion as Mrs. Monarch. There was a great deal of country-house
life-treated, it is true, in a fine fanciful ironical generalised
way--and there was a considerable implication of knickerbockers and
kilts. There were certain things I had to settle at the outset;
such things for instance as the exact appearance of the hero and
the particular bloom and figure of the heroine. The author of
course gave me a lead, but there was a margin for interpretation.