II

When she came again to the studio, she was different, subdued,
evading, avoiding, smiling a little in her flushed diffidence at his
gay ease of manner--or assumption of both ease and gaiety.

He was inclined to rally her, tease her, but her reticence was not
all embarrassment. The lightest contact, the slightest caress from
him, added a seriousness to her face, making it very lovely under
its heightened color, and strangely childlike.

Model and master they would have remained no longer had it been for
him to say, he desiring now to make it a favor and concession on her
part to aid him professionally, she gravely insisting on
professionalism as the basis of whatever entente might develop
between them, as well as the only avowed excuse for her presence
there alone with him.

"Please. It's respectable," she insisted her agreeable, modulated
voice. "I had rather the reason for my coming here be
business--whatever else happens."

"What has happened," he said, balancing a handful of wet clay in one
hand and looking laughingly up at her, where she stood on the
model-stand, "is that a pretty girl strolled in here one day and
held up a mirror to a solemn ass who was stalking theatrically
through life. That solemn ass is very grateful for the glimpse he