on the
support near his wooden tools. She wore a beautiful grey drees, such a
one as only certain Parisian hands can create. It fitted her to
perfection, displaying her shape, and, where the fur opened at the neck,
amongst the lace he saw the gleaming and flashing of a jewel whose value
would have made a man rich. Already the air was sweet with the fragrance
of the scent she used. She had been in grey when he had first seen her
on the day of the unveiling of the monument. Fairfax passed his hand
across his eyes, as though to brush away a vision which, like a mist,
was still between them. He put his hand down over hers on the pedestal.

"I love you," he said very low. "That is the matter. That is the
trouble. I love you. I want you to know it. I dare love you. I am
perfectly penniless and I am glad of it. I want to owe everything to my
art, to climb through the thorns to where I shall some day reach. I am
proud of my poverty and of my emancipation from everything that others
think is necessary to happiness. I am rude. I cannot help it. I shall
never see you again. I ought not to speak to you in my barren room. I
know that you are not free and that you are going to be married, but you
must hear once what I have to tell you. I love you.... I love you."

She was as motionless as the grey study. He might himself have made and
carved "the woman in her entirety," for she stood motionless before him.

"Tell Cedersholm," he said bitterly, "tell him that a poor sculptor, a
struggler who lives to climb beyond him, who will some day climb beyond
him, loves you."

The arrogance and pride of his words and her immobility affected him
more than a reproof or even speech. He took her in his arms, and she was
neither marble nor clay, but a woman there.

"Tell him," he murmured close to her cheek, "that I have kissed you and
held you."

And here she said; "Hush!" almost inaudibly, and released herself. She
was trembling. She put her hands to her eyes. "I shall tell him nothing.
He is nothing to me. I sent him away when he first came, a fortnight
ago. I shall never see Cedersholm again."

"What!" cried Tony, looking at her in rapture, "what, you are _free_?"
At his heart there was triumph, excitement, wonder, all blending with
the bigger emotion. He heard himself ask her eagerly: "Why, why did you
do this?"

There were tears on her eyelids.

His face flushing, his eyes illumined, he looked down on her and lifted
her face to him