ave I seen him before. He says himself to be a painter. He asks to
paint me--he begs! I go to his studio, as you know. I hesitate when I
have seen his pictures--all of horrible persons, bad women and a beastly
old man. At last he persuades me to be painted, promising to give me the
picture when finished. He paints and paints, destroys and destroys. I am
patient. I give up nearly all my time to him. I sit there day after day
for hours. At last he has painted me. And when I look I find he has made
of me a beast, a monster, worse than all the other horrible persons. And
when I come in he is showing this monster to you, a lady, my friend, one
I respect and admire above all, and who, perhaps, has thought of me with
kindness, who has been to me in trouble, to my flat, who has told me
her sorrow and put trust in me as in none other. 'Here he is!' says Dick
Garstin. 'This beast, this monster--it is he! Look at him. I introduce
you to Nicolas Arabian!' Am I, in return for such things, to say, 'All
right! Now take this beast, this monster, and show him to all the world
and say, "There is Nicolas Arabian!"' Do you say I should do this?"

"But I have nothing to do with it."

"Have you not?"

Her eyes gave way before his and looked down.

"Anyhow," he said, "I will not do it. I have a will as well as he."

"Yes," she thought. "You have a will, a tremendous will."

"To you," he said, "I show what I would not show to him, that I have
feelings and that I am very much hurt to-day."

"I am sorry. I told Dick Garstin--"

"Yes? What?"

"Before you came I told him he ought not to exhibit the picture."

"Ah! Thank you! Thank you!"

He smiled, and the lustrously soft look came into his eyes.

"A woman--she always knows what a man is!" he said, in a low voice.

"It is cold standing here!" she said.

She shivered as she spoke and looked at the water.

"We will go to my flat," he said, with a sudden air of authority. "There
is a big fire there."

"Oh, no, I can't!"

"Why not? You have been there."

"Yes, but I ought not to have gone. I am in mourning."

"You go to Dick Garstin. What is the difference?"

"People are so foolish. They talk."

"But you go to Dick Garstin!"

He had turned, and now made her walk back by his side along the river
bank among the whirling leaves.

"People have begun to talk about us," she said, almost desperately.
"That women, Mrs. Birchington, who lives opposite to you--she's a
gossip."

"A