one."

"Oh, don't!"

"All right, I won't."

There was silence between them for some time after this. Brant sat with
his hands clenched and resting upon his knees, his head bent a little.
Charlotte had turned and laid one bended arm upon the high back of the
old bench--her head rested against it. She was the first to speak, in the
light tone with which her sex is accustomed to let a situation down from
the heights of strong emotion to a more normal level.

"What do you do with a sitter who won't let you bring out her best
points, but insists on making herself into the stiffest sort of a lay
figure?"

"Chloroform her and relax the tension." Brant's tone was grim. Then,
suddenly, he looked up. "Will you let me go in and make a flashlight of
you by a new method I've worked out? I promise you you'll find it a trick
worth knowing."

"I shall be delighted. You've taught me half I know, and I'm more
grateful than I seem."

"I hope that's true," he said, still in the grim tone, as they went up
the garden path toward the house.

Inside the house he became the exponent of the art of which he was past
master. His study was to him only a diversion, but he had become
distinguished in it as an amateur who played at being a professional
for the interest of it, and who possessed a collection of photographic
portraits of half the celebrities in the world. With eager interest
Charlotte watched him manipulate improvised screens and devices for
casting light and shadow, and when he posed her understood the result
he meant to produce.

"Oh, that will give a new effect!" she said, delightedly. "I should never
have thought of it in the world."

"It will almost absolutely overcome the flatness of the flashlight, as
you will see when we develop it--if you will let me stay so long. Now--"

The flash flared and died. Brant smiled with gratification. If he knew
what he was doing he had a new portrait of Charlotte Ruston which would
surpass anything he had yet made of her. It seemed to him that during
these last weeks she had grown even more desirable than he had ever known
her. There had always been a spirit and enchantment about her personality
which had been his undoing, but there was now a quality in it which was
well nigh his despair--the quality born of self-sacrifice and endeavour,
those invisible but potent agencies in the creating of the highest type
of womanly charm.

The pair went into the dark-room together. Here, at leas