"Do you think you are a Sultana?" he inquired, draping the towel
across her outstretched arms and leaving it there.

"I thought perhaps you'd dry them," she said sweetly.

"Not in the business," he remarked; and lighted his pipe.

Her hands were her particular beauty, soft and snowy. She was much
in demand among painters, and had posed many times for pictures of
the Virgin, her hands usually resting against her breast.

Now she bestowed great care upon them, thoroughly drying each
separate, slender finger. Then she pushed back the heavy masses of
her hair--"a miracle of silk and sunshine," as Quair had whispered
to her. That same hair, also, was very popular among painters.

It was her figure that fascinated sculptors.

"Are you ready?" grunted Drene. Work presently recommenced.

She was entirely accustomed to praise from men, for her general
attractiveness, for various separate features in what really was an
unusually lovely ensemble.

She was also accustomed to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary
variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine
feeling, too, in its various modes of expression--sentimental,
explosive, insinuating--the entire gamut.