turned with her toward the other room. As he passed her to draw
aside the curtain she touched his arm with the tips of her fingers so
lightly--as she intended--that he did not feel it. There was a mute,
confiding tenderness in the action more telling than any speech. The
woman had had a brilliant, varied, but lonely life. It must still be
lonely, though now the pleasant vista of a new career kept opening and
closing before her, rendering her days fascinating yet troubled, her
nights full of joyful but uneasy hours. The game thus far had gone against
her. Yet she was popular, merry and amiable!

She passed composedly into the other room. Hagar greeted the young girl,
gave her books and papers, opened the piano, called for some refreshments
and presented both with a rose from a bunch upon the table. The young girl
was perfectly happy to be allowed to sit in the courts without and amuse
herself while the artist and his model should have their hour with pencil
and canvas.

The two then went to the studio again, and, leaving the curtain drawn
back, Hagar arranged Mrs. Detlor in position and began his task. He stood
looking at the canvas for a time, as though to enter into the spirit of it
again; then turned to his model. She was no longer Mrs. Detlor, but his
subject, near to him as his canvas and the creatures of his imagination,
but as a mere woman in whom he was profoundly interested (that at least)
an immeasurable distance from him. He was the artist only now.

It was strange. There grew upon the canvas Mrs. Detlor's face, all the
woman of it, just breaking through sweet, awesomely beautiful, girlish
features; and though the work was but begun there was already that
luminous tone which artists labor so hard to get, giving to the face a
weird, yet charming expression.

For an hour he worked, then he paused. "Would you like to see it?" he
said.

She rose eagerly, and a little pale. He had now sketched in more
distinctly the figure of the man, changed it purposely to look more like
Telford. She saw her own face first. It shone out of the canvas. She gave
a gasp of pain and admiration. Then she caught sight of Telford's figure,
with the face blurred and indistinct.

"Oh!" she said with a shudder. That--that is like him. How could you
know?"

"If that is the man," he said, "I saw him this morning. Is his name Mark
Telford?"

"Yes," she said, and sank into a chair. Presently she sprang to her feet,
caught up a brush