red the room behind me.

"I am so glad to find you."

I started to my feet at the sound of the soft voice, and went forward
to the door.

"Viola! how good of you to come." I took both her hands and drew her
into the firelight which sparkled gratefully on her tall slender
figure and the fair waves of hair under her velvet hat.

"May I stay and have tea with you? I have shopping all the afternoon
and as I was driving past I thought I would see if you were in and
disengaged."

"I shall be delighted," I said as I wheeled another armchair up to the
fire.

"You are sure? You have nothing else to do?"

"Nothing, really nothing," I said, walking to the electric lights and
switching them on; "and if I had, I would leave it all to have tea
with you."

She laughed, such a pretty dainty laugh! What a contrast to the rough
giggles amongst the models this morning!

"Trevor! you are just the same as ever; all compliments. But I am
immensely glad you are not going to turn me out, for I am chilly and
tired and want my tea and a talk with you very badly." And she settled
down in her large chair with a sigh of content.

I came back to the hearth and stood looking down upon her. The light
was rose-coloured, falling through tinted globes, and soft as the
firelight. She looked exquisite, and she must have seen the admiration
in my eyes for she coloured under them.

She was wearing a dark green velvet gown edged fur and which fitted
her lovely figure closely, being perhaps designed to display it.

"You have come like a glorious sunset to a gloomy day," I said. "I
have had a horrid morning and been depressed all the afternoon."

"You have no inspiration, then, yet for the Phryne?" she answered,
glancing round; "otherwise you would be in the seventh heaven."

"No," I groaned, "and the models are so dreadful; so far from giving
one an inspiration, they would kill any one had. All last week I was
trying to find a model, and all this morning again. I would give
anything for a good one."

She murmured a sympathetic assent, and I went on, pursuing my own
thoughts freely, for Viola was my cousin and no one else knew or
understood me so well as she did. We had grown up together, and always
talked on all sorts of subjects to each other.

"The difficulty is with most of these English models, they are so
thick and heavy, so cart-horsey, or else they are so thin. The tall,
graceful ones are too thin, I want those subtle, gracious line