iled. "Ah, well, it does not matter. You can come to the pavilion
on Monday at five and sit to the evening class for a week. You
understand? Wait a minute." He went to the door and called one of the
young men in from the garden.

"Here is a new model, Mario. I have engaged her for the evening class.
What do you think of her?"

"_Carina assai_," approved Mario. He was a round-faced, snub-nosed
youth with clever brown eyes set very far apart, and a humorous mouth.
"_Carina assai!_" he repeated.

"Fifteen soldi the hour, from five to seven-thirty," said the
professor. "Come a little before the time on Monday; the porter will
show you what costume you must wear and I shall be there to pose you."

"Now I shall take you to M'sieur Michelin," Rosina said when they had
left Varini's. "He is looking for a type, and perhaps you will please
him. He is _strano_, but good always, and he pays well."

"It is not tiring you?"

"_Ma che!_ I must see that you begin well and with the right people.
Some painters are _canaglia_. Ah, I know that," the girl said with a
little sigh and a shrug of her shoulders.

They went by way of the Via Babuino across the Piazza di Spagna, and
up the little hill past the convent of English nuns to the Villa
Medici. Rosina rang the gate-bell, and the old braided Cerberus
admitted them grumblingly. "You are late. But if it is M'sieur
Camille--"

Camille Michelin, bright particular star of the French Prix de Rome
constellation, lived and worked in one of the more secluded
garden-studios of the villa; it was deep set in the ilex wood, and the
girls came to it by a narrow winding path, box-edged, and strewn with
dead leaves. A light shone in one of the upper windows; the great man
was there and he came down the creaking wooden stairs himself to open
the door.

"Who is it? Rosina? I have put away the Anthony canvas for a month
and I will let you know when I want you again."

"But, signorino, I have brought you a type."

"What!" he said eagerly, in his execrable Italian. "Fresh, sweet,
clean?"

"_Sicuro._"

"I do not believe you. You are lying."

Camille was picturesque from the crown of his flaxen head to the soles
of his brown boots; his pallor was interesting, his blue eyes
remarkable; he habitually wore rust-coloured velveteen; he smoked
cigarettes incessantly. All men who knew and loved his work saw in him
a decadent creature of extraordinary charm; and yet, in spite of his
"Aholibah," his