r entirely, quenched his desire to see
her at that particular time.

Sometimes it was sheer disinclination to make an effort to communicate
with her, sometimes, and usually, the self-centering concentration
which included himself and his career, as well as his work, seemed to
obliterate even any memory of her existence.

Now and then, when alone in his shabby bedroom, reading a dull book, or
duly preparing to retire, far in the dim recesses of heart and brain a
faint pain became apparent--if it could still be called pain, this vague
ghost of anger stirring in the ashes of dead years--and at such moments
he thought of Graylock, and of another; and the partly paralyzed
emotion, which memory of these two evoked, stirred him finally to think
of Cecile.

It was at such times that he always determined to seek her the next day
and continue with her what had been begun--an intimacy which depended
upon his own will; a destiny for her which instinct whispered was within
his own control. But the next day found him at work; models of various
types, ages, and degrees of stupidity came, posed, were paid, and
departed; his studies for the groups in collaboration with Guilder and
Quair were approaching the intensely interesting period--that stage of
completion where composition has been determined upon and the excitement
of developing the construction and the technical charm of modeling
begins.

And evening always found him physically tired and mentally satisfied--or
perturbed--to the exclusion of such minor interests as life is
made of--dress, amusement, food, women. Between a man and a beloved
profession in full shock of embrace there is no real room for these or
thought of these.

He ate irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic
of creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples, and
grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid New
York summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt, silent,
darkly absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air until some
half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a headache, set
him in reluctant motion.

He heard of Cecile now and then; Cosby had used her for a figure on
a fountain destined to embellish the estate of a wealthy young man
somewhere or other; Greer employed her for the central figure of
Innocence in his lovely and springlike decoration for some Western
public edifice. Quair had met her several tim