.

"Overwhelmingly."

Geraldine shrugged and gazed into space. She didn't exactly know why she
had given that little hitch to her shoulders.

"I'd like to paint Kathleen," he observed.

A flush tinted the girl's cheeks. She said nervously:

"Why don't you ask her?"

"I've meant to. Somehow, one doesn't ask things lightly of Kathleen."

"One doesn't ask things of some women at all," she remarked.

He looked up; she was examining her empty teacup with fixed interest.

"Ask what sort of thing?" he inquired, walking over to the table and
resting his glass on it.

"Oh, I don't know what I meant. Nothing. What is that in your glass? Let
me taste it.... Ugh! It's Scotch!"

She set back the glass with a shudder. After a few moments she picked it
up again and tasted it disdainfully.

"Do you like this?" she demanded with youthful contempt.

"Pretty well," he admitted.

"It tastes something like brandied peaches, doesn't it?"

"I never noticed that it did."

And as he remained smilingly aloof and silent, at intervals,
tentatively, uncertain whether or not she exactly cared for it, she
tasted the iced contents of the tall, frosty glass and watched him where
he sat loosely at ease flicking at sun-moats with the loop of his
riding-crop.

"I'd like to see a typical studio," she said reflectively.

"I've asked you to mine often enough."

"Yes, to tea with other people. I don't mean that way. I'd like to see
it when it's not all dusted and in order for feminine inspection. I'd
like to see a man's studio when it's in shape for work--with the
gr-r-reat painter in a fine frenzy painting, and the model posing
madly----"

"Come on, then! If Kathleen lets you, and you can stand it, come down
and knock some day unexpectedly."

"O Duane! I _couldn't_, could I?"

"Not with propriety. But come ahead."

"Naturally, impropriety appeals to you."

"Naturally. To you, too, doesn't it?"

"No. But wouldn't it astonish you if you heard a low, timid knocking
some day when you and your Bohemian friends were carousing and having a
riotous time there----"

"Yes, it would, but I'm afraid that low, timid knocking couldn't be
heard in the infernal uproar of our usual revelry."

"Then I'd knock louder and louder, and perhaps kick once or twice if you
didn't come to the door and let me in."

He laughed. After a moment she laughed, too; her dark eyes were very
friendly now. Watching the amusement in his face, she continued to