e
to your room."

"It is on the sixth floor," he replied; "the highest of all. It is a
bare little place."

"I will come," she said, and was turning away when he stopped her.

"I--I should like to tell you how grateful I am--" he began.

"There is no need," she responded with bitter lightness. "You will pay
me some day--when you are a great artist." But when she reached the
next landing she glanced down and saw that he still stood beneath
watching her.

* * * * *

The next day she kept her word and went to him. She found his room
poorer and barer even than she had fancied it might be. The ceiling
was low and slanting; in one corner stood a narrow iron bedstead, in
another a wooden table; in the best light the small window gave his
easel was placed with a chair before it.

When he had opened the door in answer to her summons, and she saw all
this, she glanced quickly at his face to see if there was any shade of
confusion upon it, but there was none. He appeared only rejoiced and
eager.

"I felt sure it was you," he said.

"Were you then so sure that I would come?" she asked.

"You said you would," he answered. He placed her as he wished to paint
her, and then sat down to his work. In a few moments he was completely
absorbed in it. For a long time he did not speak at all. The utter
silence which reigned--a silence which was not only a suspension of
speech but a suspension of any other thought beyond his task--was a
new experience to her. His cheek flushed, his eyes burned dark and
bright; it seemed as if he scarcely breathed. When he turned to look
at her she was conscious each time of a sudden thrill of feeling. More
than once he paused for several moments, brush and palette in hand,
simply watching her face. At one of these pauses she herself broke
the silence.

"Why do you look at me so?" she asked. "You look at me as if--as if--"
And she broke off with an uneasy little laugh.

He roused himself with a slight start and colored sensitively, passing
his hand across his forehead.

"What I want to paint is not always in your face," he answered.
"Sometimes I lose it, and then I must wait a little until--until
I find it again. It is not only your face I want, it is
yourself--yourself!" And he made a sudden unconscious gesture with
his hands.

She tried to laugh again,--hard and lightly as before,--but failed.

"Myself!" she said. "_Mon Dieu!_ Do not grasp at me, Monsieur. I