ou."

He took both her hands in his and kissed them.

"It's several years since I expected anything," he answered. "Now--I
only hope."

Nan smiled.

"Come in, pessimist, and don't begin by being epigrammatic on the very
doorstep. Tea? Or coffee? I'm afraid the flat doesn't run to
whisky-and-soda."

"Coffee, please--and your conversation--will suffice. 'A Loaf of
Bread . . . and Thou beside me singing in the Wilderness' . . ."

"You'd much prefer a whisky-and-soda and a grilled steak to the loaf
and--the et ceteras," observed Nan cynically. "There's a very wide gulf
between what a man says and what he thinks."

"There's a much wider one between what a man wants and what he gets," he
returned grimly.

"You'll soon have all you want," she answered. "You're well on the way
to fame already."

"Do you know," he remarked irrelevantly, "your eyes are exactly like blue
violets. I'd like to paint you, Nan."

"Perhaps I'll sit for you some day," she replied, handing him his coffee.
"That is, if you're very good."

Maryon Rooke was a man the merit of whose work was just beginning to be
noticed in the art world. For years he had laboured unacknowledged and
with increasing bitterness--for he knew his own worth. But now, though,
still only in his early thirties, his reputation, particularly as a
painter of women's portraits, had begun to be noised abroad. His feet
were on the lower rungs of the ladder, and it was generally prophesied
that he would ultimately reach the top. His gifts were undeniable, and
there was a certain ruthlessness in the line of the lips above the small
Van Dyck beard he wore which suggested that he would permit little to
stand in the way of his attaining his goal--be it what it might.

"You'd make a delightful picture, Sun-kissed," he said, narrowing his
eyes and using one of his most frequent names for her. "With your blue
violet eyes and that rose-petal skin of yours."

Nan smiled involuntarily.

"Don't be so flowery, Maryon. Really, you and Penelope are very good
antidotes to each other! She's just been giving me a lecture on the
error of my ways. She doesn't waste any breath over my appearance, bless
her!"

"What's the crime?"

"Lack of application, waste of opportunities, and general idleness."

"It's all true." Rooke leaned forward, his eyes lit by momentary
enthusiasm. They were curious eyes--hazel brown, with a misleading
softness in them that appealed to every wo