sharp tramontana; that cold which is never,
if measured by the thermometer, severe, but against which clothing seems
ineffectual. The blood does not react against it; the blood shrinks
away, and stagnates around the heart.

He would change his coat for a velveteen jacket, not in order to be
picturesque, but to keep his coat-cuffs clean. He was as particular as
an old maid, Aurora told him, before he had been caught absentmindedly
wiping paint off on his hair.

The fair model would get her chair-legs into correspondence with certain
chalk-marks on the carpet, be helped to find her pose, and having made
herself comfortable, turn on him blue eyes, with a faint brown shadow
under them--blue eyes that wore a sheepish look until she presently
forgot she was sitting for her picture. She was pressed to keep her
opera-cloak over her shoulders, lest she take cold in her decollete; the
high fur collar made an effective background for her face. Then he would
fall to painting, and the hours of the forenoon would fly.

An amiable woman would now and then make a remark, easily jocular.
Another amiable woman--soothing presences, both--would answer. Or he
would answer; there would be an interlude of familiar talk, rest, and
laughing, and throwing a ball for a scampering puppy. At noon an end to
labor. He would remain for lunch, that meal of cheery luxury, immorally
abundant. After it he would still linger in this house, bright and warm
with fires, smoking cigarettes in a chair as luxuriously soft as those
curling clouds on which are seen throning the gods in ceiling frescos,
and grow further day by day into the intimacy of the amiable women. In
full afternoon they would ask him if he would go out with them in their
carriage, take an airing, and return for dinner; or, if he obstinately
declined, might they set him down somewhere. He would make a point of
not accepting, and hurry off afoot with his damp umbrella.

Although Gerald had enlightened contempt for the sensuous comfort he was
taking in the fleshpots of the Hermitage, there was in it one element
which he did not analyze merely to despise.

He was aware of it most often after Estelle had left the room. He
settled down then for a time of heightened well-being. It was observable
that the sitter also took on a faintly different air. Often at that
moment she would vaguely, purposelessly, smile over to him, and he would
smile in absolute reciprocity. They would not seize the oppor