"Yes.... I don't know why I never asked you before--"

"It was absurd not to," she said, impulsively; "I'd have gone anywhere
with you the first day I ever knew you! Besides, I dress well enough for
you not to be ashamed of me."

He began to laugh: "Valerie, you funny little thing! You funny, funny
little thing!"

"Not in the slightest," she retorted, sedately. "I'm having a heavenly
time for the first time in my life, and I have so wanted you to be part
of it ... of course you _are_ part of it," she added, hastily--"most of
it! I only meant that I--I'd like to be a little in your other
life--have you enter mine, a little--just so I can remember, in years to
come, an evening with you now and then--to see things going on around
us--to hear what you think of things that we see together.... Because,
with you, I feel so divinely free, so unembarrassed, so entirely off my
guard.... I don't mean to say that I don't have a splendid time with the
others even when I have to watch them; I do--and even the watching is
fun--"

The child-like audacity and laughing frankness, the confidence of her
attitude toward him were delightfully refreshing. He looked into her
pretty, eager, engaging face, smiling, captivated.

"Valerie," he said, "tell me something--will you?"

"Yes, if I can."

"I'm more or less of a painting machine. I've made myself so,
deliberately--to the exclusion of other interests. I wonder"--he looked
at her musingly--"whether I'm carrying it too far for my own good."

"I don't understand."

"I mean--is there anything machine-made about my work? Does it
lack--does it lack anything?"

"No!" she said, indignantly loyal. "Why do you ask me that?"

"People--some people say it does lack--a certain quality."

She said with supreme contempt: "You must not believe them. I also hear
things--and I know it is an unworthy jealousy that--"

"What have you heard?" he interrupted.

"Absurdities. I don't wish even to think of them--"

"I wish you to. Please. Such things are sometimes significant."

"But--is there any significance in what a few envious artists say--or a
few silly models--"

"More significance in what they say than in a whole chorus of
professional critics."

"Are you serious?" she asked, astonished.

"Perfectly. Without naming anybody or betraying any confidence, what
have you heard in criticism of my work? It's from models and brother
painters that the real truth comes--usually distorted, h