away," he said, laughing. "You're too good
to be real; I'm worried half to death for fear that you'll vanish in a
golden cloud, or something equally futile and inconsiderate. No, I want
you to stay. You don't mind, do you?"

He was aiding her to descend from her eyrie, her little white hand
balanced on his arm. When she set foot on the floor she looked up at him
gravely:

"You wouldn't let me do anything that I ought not to, would you, Mr.
Kelly--I mean Mr. Neville?" she added in confusion.

"No. Anyway I don't know what you ought or ought not to do. Luncheon is
a simple matter of routine. It's sole significance is two empty
stomachs. I suppose if you go out you _will_ come back, but--I'd rather
you'd remain."

"Why?"

"Well," he admitted with a laugh, "it's probably because I like to hear
myself talk to you. Besides, I've always the hope that you'll suddenly
become conversational, and that's a possibility exciting enough to give
anybody an appetite."

"But I _have_ conversed with you," she said.

"Only a little. What you said acted like a cocktail to inspire me for a
desire for more."

"I am afraid that you were not named Kelly in vain."

"You mean blarney? No, it's merely frankness. Let me get you some
bath-slippers--"

"Oh--but if I am to lunch here--I can't do it this way!" she exclaimed
in flushed consternation.

"Indeed you must learn to do that without embarrassment, Miss West. Tie
up your robe at the throat, tuck up your sleeves, slip your feet into a
nice pair of brand-new bath-slippers, and I'll ring for luncheon."

"I--don't--want to--" she began; but he went away into the hall, rang,
and presently she heard the ascending clatter of a dumb-waiter. From it
he took the luncheon card and returned to where she was sitting at a
rococo table. She blushed as he laid the card before her, and would have
nothing to do with it. The result was that he did the ordering, sent the
dumb-waiter down with his scribbled memorandum, and came wandering back
with long, cool glances at his canvas and the work he had done on it.

"I mean to make a stunning thing of it," he remarked, eying the huge
chassis critically. "All this--deviltry--whatever it is inside of
me--must come out somehow. And that canvas is the place for it." He
laughed and sat down opposite her:

"Man is born to folly, Miss West--born full of it. I get rid of mine on
canvas. It's a safer outlet for original sin than some other ways."

She lay ba