er
Pygmalion's frenzy had warmed her into life.

Trenholme was absolutely deaf now to any consideration save that of
artistic endeavor. With a swift accuracy that was nearly marvelous he
put on the canvas the sheen of faultless limbs and slender neck. He
even secured the spun-gold glint of hair tightly coifed under a
bathing cap--a species of head-dress which had puzzled him at the
first glance--and there was more than a suggestion of a veritable
portrait of the regular, lively and delicately beautiful features
which belonged to a type differing in every essential from the cold,
classic loveliness of the statue, yet vastly more appealing in its
sheer femininity.

Then the spell was broken. The girl slipped on her shoes, dressed
herself in a few seconds, and was hurrying back to the house, almost
before Trenholme dared to breathe normally.

"Well," he muttered, watching the swaying of the green skirt as its
owner traversed the park, "this is something like an adventure! By
Jove, I've been lucky this morning! I've got my picture for next
year's Salon!"

He had got far more, if only he were gifted to peer into the future;
but that is a privilege denied to men, even to artists. Soon, when he
was calmer, and the embryo sketch had assumed its requisite color
notes for subsequent elaboration, he smiled a trifle dubiously.

"If that girl's temperament is as attractive as her looks I'd throw
over the Salon for the sake of meeting her," he mused. "But that's
frankly impossible, I suppose. At the best, she would not forgive me
if she knew I had watched her in this thievish way. I could never
explain it, never! She wouldn't even listen. Well, it's better to have
dreamed and lost than never to have dreamed at all."

And yet he dreamed. His eyes followed the fair unknown while she
entered the garden through a gateway of dense yews, and sped lightly
up the steps of a terrace adorned with other statues in marble and
bronze. No doorway broke the pleasing uniformity of the south front,
but she disappeared through an open window, swinging herself lightly
over the low sill. He went with her in imagination. Now she was
crossing a pretty drawing-room, now running upstairs to her room, now
dressing, possibly in white muslin, which, if Trenholme had the
choosing of it, would be powdered with tiny _fleurs de lys_, now
arranging her hair with keen eye for effect, and now tripping down
again in obedience to a gong summoning the household