re too
nearly extinct for such familiarity. Call me _Mr._ Kelly."

"I won't. You are only a big boy, anyway--Louis Neville--and sometimes I
shall call you Kelly, and sometimes Louis, and very occasionally Mr.
Neville."

"All right," he said, absently--"only hold that distractingly ornamental
head and those incomparable shoulders a trifle more steady, please--rest
solidly on the left leg--let the right hip fall into its natural
position--_that's_ it. Thank you."

Holding the pose her eyes wandered from him and his canvas to the
evening tinted clouds already edged with deeper gold. Through the sheet
of glass above she saw a shred of white fleece in mid-heaven turn to a
pale pink.

"I wonder why you asked me to tea?" she mused.

"What?" He turned around to look at her.

"You never before asked me to do such a thing," she said, candidly.
"You're an absent-minded man, Mr. Neville."

"It never occurred to me," he retorted, amused. "Tea is weak-minded."

"It occurred to me. That's what part of my 'thorough talk' is to be
about; your carelessness in noticing me except professionally."

He continued working, rapidly now; and it seemed to her as though
something--a hint of the sombre--had come into his face--nothing
definite--but the smile was no longer there, and the brows were slightly
knitted.

Later he glanced up impatiently at the sky: the summer clouds wore a
deeper rose and gold.

"We'd better have our foolish tea," he said, abruptly, driving his
brushes into a bowl of black soap and laying aside his palette for his
servant to clean later.

For a while, not noticing her, he fussed about his canvas, using a knife
here, a rag there, passing to and fro across the scaffolding, oblivious
of the flight of time, until at length the waning light began to
prophesy dusk, and he came to himself with a guilty start.

Below, in the studio, Valerie sat, fully dressed except for hat and
gloves, head resting in the padded depths of an armchair, watching him
in silence.

"I declare," he said, looking down at her contritely, "I never meant to
keep you all this time. Good Lord! Have I been puttering up here for an
hour and a half! It's nearly eight o'clock! Why on earth didn't you
speak to me, Valerie?"

"It's a braver girl than I am who'll venture to interrupt you at work,
Kelly," she said, laughingly. "I'm a little afraid of you."

"Nonsense! I wasn't doing anything. My Heaven!--_can_ it be eight
o'clock?"

"It is..