he would like to see the
statue, and he persuaded Pat to follow him, and they climbed along the
wall and dropped into the mews, and got the hasp off the door with the
kitchen poker."

"But why did they break the statue?" said Rodney.

"I don't think they know why themselves. I tried to get Pat to tell me,
but all he could tell me was that he had bumped against a woman with a
cloak on."

"My lay figure."

"And in trying to get out of the studio they had knocked down a bust,
and after they had done that Taigdh said: 'We had better have down this
one. The priest does not like it, and if we have it down he won't have
to pay for it.'"

"They must have heard the priest saying that he did not want the
statue."

"Very likely they did, but I am sure the priest never said that he
wanted the statue broken."

"Oh, it is a great muddle," said Rodney. "But there it is. My statue is
broken. Two little boys have broken it. Two little boys who overheard a
priest talking nonsense, and did not quite understand. I am going away
to-night."

"Then I shall not see you again,... and you said I was a good model."

Her meaning was clear to him. He remembered how he had stood in the
midst of his sculpture asking himself what a man is to do when a girl,
walking with a walk at once idle and rhythmical, stops suddenly and
puts her hand on his shoulder and looks up in his face. He had sworn he
would not kiss her again and he had broken his oath, but the desire of
her as a model had overborne every other desire. Now he was going away
for ever, and his heart told him that she was as sweet a thing as he
would find all the world over. But if he took her with him he would
have to look after her till the end of his life. This was not his
vocation. His hesitation endured but a moment, if he hesitated at all.

"You'd like to go away with me, but what should I do with you. I'm
thirty-five and you're sixteen." He could see that the difference of
age did not strike her--she was not looking into the remote future.

"I don't think, Lucy, your destiny is to watch me making statues. Your
destiny is a gayer one than that. You want to play the piano, don't
you?"

"I should have to go to Germany to study, and I have no money. Well,"
she said, "I must go back now. I just came to tell you who had wrecked
your studio. Good-bye. It has all been an unlucky business for both of
us."

"A beautiful model," Rodney said to himself, as he watched her going up