vagance."

"Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy Park,
when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honest
working-man?"

"Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won't stand for that!" he expostulated.
"You know perfectly well I keep my room here because it's the only place
I can work in quietly--"

"And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if you
left him entirely," supplemented the sculptress.

Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. "Did you tell
all this stuff to Miss Holland?" he asked.

"Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barely
sufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planning
to help you realize your destiny."

"Which is?" he queried with lifted brows.

"To be a great painter."

The other winced. "As you know, I've meant all along, as soon as I've
saved enough--"

"Oh, yes; _I_ know," broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can be quite
ruthless where Art is concerned, "and _you_ know; but time flies and
hell is paved with good intentions, and if you want to be that kind of a
pavement artist--well, I think Peter Quick Banta is a better."

"Do you suppose she'd let me paint her?" he asked abruptly.

If statuettes could blink, the one upon which the Bonnie Lassie was
busied would certainly have shrouded its vision against the dazzling
radiance of her smile, for this was coming about as she had planned it
from the moment when she had caught the flash of startled surprise and
wonder in his eyes, as they first rested on Bobbie Holland. Here, she
had guessed, might be the agency to bring Julien Tenney to his artistic
senses; and even so it was now working out. But all she said was--and
she said it with a sort of venomous blandness--"My dear boy, you
can't paint."

"Can't I! Just because I'm a little out of practice--"

"Two years, isn't it, since you've touched a palette?"

"Give me a chance at such a model as she is! That's all I ask."

"Do you think her so pretty?" inquired the sculptress disparagingly.

"Pretty? She's the loveliest thing that--" Catching his hostess's smile
he broke off. "You'll admit it's a well-modeled face," he said
professionally; "and--and--well, unusual."

"Pooh! 'Dangerous' is the word. Remember it," warned the Bonnie Lassie.
"She's a devastating whirlwind, that child, and she comes down here
partly to get away from the wreckage. Now, if you play your part
cleverly--"