that you charge your mind with the coddling of that
great big, pink-cheeked boy?" laughed Valerie,

"Coddling!" repeated Rita, flushing up. "I don't call it coddling to
stop in for a moment to remind a friend that he doesn't know how to take
care of himself, and never will."

"Nonsense. You couldn't kill a man of that size and placidity of
character."

"You don't know anything about him. He is much more delicate than he
looks."

Valerie glanced curiously at the girl, who was preparing oysters in the
chafing dish.

"How do _you_ happen to know so much about him, Rita?"

She answered, carelessly: "I have known him ever since I began to
pose--almost."

Valerie set her cup aside, sprang up to rinse mouth and hands. Then,
gathering her pink negligee around her, curled up in a big wing-chair,
drawing her bare feet up under the silken folds and watching Rita
prepare the modest repast for one.

"Rita," she said, "who was the first artist you ever posed for? Was it
John Burleson--and did you endure the tortures of the damned?"

"No, it was not John Burleson.... And I endured--enough."

"Don't you care to tell me who it was?"

Rita did not reply at that time. Later, however, when the simple supper
was ended, she lighted a cigarette and found a place where, with
lamplight behind her, she could read a book which Burleson had sent her,
and which she had been attempting to assimilate and digest all winter.
It was a large, thick, dark book, and weighed nearly four pounds. It was
called "Essays on the Obvious "; and Valerie had made fun of it until,
to her surprise, she noticed that her pleasantries annoyed Rita.

Valerie, curled up in the wing-chair, cheek resting against its velvet
side, was reading the Psalms again--fascinated as always by the noble
music of the verse. And it was only by chance that, lifting her eyes
absently for a moment, she found that Rita had laid aside her book and
was looking at her intently.

"Hello, dear!" she said, indolently humorous.

Rita said: "You read your Bible a good deal, don't you?"

"Parts of it."

"The parts you believe?"

"Yes; and the parts that I can't believe."

"What parts can't you believe?"

Valerie laughed: "Oh, the unfair parts--the cruel parts, the
inconsistent parts."

"What about faith?"

"Faith is a matter of temperament, dear."

"Haven't you any?"

"Yes, in all things good."

"Then you have faith in yourself that you are capable of deciding what
is