s soon over. Even had she been
so inclined there was, of course, no place for her to visit now, no
place to sit and watch him among all these men. After hours, once or
twice, she came in to tea--to gossip a little with the old-time ease,
and barter with him epigram for jest, nonsense for inconsequence. Yet,
subtly--after she had gone home--she felt the effort. Either he or she
had imperceptibly changed; she knew not which was guilty; but she knew.

Besides, she herself was now in universal demand--and in the furor of
her popularity she had been, from the beginning, forced to choose among
a very few with whom she personally felt herself at ease, and to whom
she had become confidently accustomed. Also, from the beginning, she had
not found it necessary to sit undraped for many--a sculptor or
two--Burleson and Gary Graves--Sam Ogilvy with his eternal mermaidens,
Querida--nobody else. The other engagements had been for costume or, at
most, for head and shoulders. Illustrators now clamoured for her in
modish garments of the moment--in dinner gown, ball gown, afternoon,
carriage, motor, walking, tennis, golf, riding costumes; poster artists
made her pretty features popular; photographs of her in every style of
indoor and outdoor garb decorated advertisements in the backs of monthly
magazines. She was seen turning on the water in model bathtubs, offering
the admiring reader a box of bonbons, demurely displaying a brand of
hosiery, recommending cold cream, baked beans, railroad routes, tooth
powder, and real-estate on Long Island.

Her beauty, the innocent loveliness of her features, her dainty modest
charm, the enchanting outline and mould of her figure were beginning to
make her celebrated. Already people about town--at the play, in the
park, on avenue and street, in hotels and restaurants, were beginning to
recognise her, follow her with approving or hostile eyes, turn their
heads to watch her.

Theatrical agents wrote her, making attractive offers for an engagement
where showgirls were the ornamental caryatids which upheld the three
tottering unities along Broadway. She also had chances to wear very
wonderful model gowns for next season at the Countess of Severn's new
dressmaking, drawing-rooms whither all snobdom crowded and shoved to get
near the trade-marked coronet, and where bewildering young ladies
strolled haughtily about all day long, displaying to agitated Gotham the
most startling gowns in the extravagant metrop