and pocketbook, slipped something
into the latter.

"I don't know what you will think of the reward of your morning's
labor," he said, in an off-hand way. "To me it seems miserably little,
although you, with your notions, may think it too much. You don't know,
of course, that a model such as the one I've secured this morning is
hard to get, and can always command a good price. You have fairly and
honestly earned it and I hope you will be willing to come again. May I
say to-morrow?"

"If baby is as well as to-day. Oh, how good you are! I hope God will
bless you for being so good to me."

"I hope He would curse me if I were not," said Noel, and then,
restraining his vehemence, he begged her to let him carry the baby
down-stairs for her. This she utterly refused, and it cut him to the
heart to feel that her reason for doing so was not so much to save him
trouble as to prevent his being seen in such a condescending attitude
toward his model. So he had to see her go off alone with her burden. He
rebelled passionately at the sight. Since the baby was--a stubborn fact
in an emaciated form--and Christine could not be happy to have it out of
her sight, the situation should, at any rate, have had the mitigations
which civilization supplies. A picturesque _bonne_, in an effective cap
and apron, should have carried the child for her, and a footman should
have held open the door of a comfortable carriage for her on reaching
the street. Instead of which he had to meet the maddening possibility
that the cabman was careless and insolent and that passers-by in the
street stared at her.

With his hands thrust deep in his trousers' pockets he turned back into
the studio, slamming the door behind him with his elbow, and walking
moodily over to the window, where he stood a long while lost in thought.
The one satisfactory reflection which the situation suggested was that
he had succeeded in making Christine accept, as a natural arrangement,
the fact that when artists employed models they always sent them to and
from the studios in a cab, which it was the artist's business to pay
for.

VIII.

The next day Christine came again, and although she was comforted by the
fact that the baby still seemed better Noel thought he had never seen or
imagined such absolute sadness as both her face and manner showed. The
picture progressed in long spaces of absolute silence, while Christine
sat as immovable as the sleeping child near by. It s