He considered her reply for a moment, her blue and rather childish eyes, and the very pure oval of her face. Then his attention flagged as usual—was wandering—when she sighed, very lightly, so that he scarcely heard it—merely noticed it sufficiently to conclude that, as usual, there was the inevitable hard luck story afloat in her vicinity, and that he lacked the interest to listen to it.

“Thinking,” she said, “is a luxury to a tranquil mind and a punishment to a troubled one. So I try not to.”

It was a moment or two before it occurred to him that the girl had uttered an unconscious epigram.

“It sounded like somebody—probably Montaigne. Was it?” he inquired.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh. Then it wasn’t. You’re a funny little girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes, rather.”

“On purpose?”

“Yes, sometimes.”

He looked into her very clear eyes, now brightly blue with intelligent perception of his not too civil badinage.

“And sometimes,” he went on, “you’re funny when you don’t intend to be.”

“You are, too, Mr. Drene.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you know it?”

A dull color tinted his cheek bones.

“No,” he said, “I didn’t know it.”

“But you are. For instance, you don’t walk; you stalk. You do what novelists make their gloomy heroes do—you stride. It’s rather funny.”

“Really. And do you find my movements comic?”

She was a trifle scared, now, but she laughed her breathless, youthful laugh:

“You are really very dramatic—a perfect story-book man. But, you know, sometimes they are funny when the author doesn’t intend them to be.... Please don’t be angry.”

Why the impudence of a model should have irritated him he was at a loss to understand—unless there lurked under that impudence a trace of unflattering truth.

As he sat looking at her, all at once, and in an unexpected flash of self-illumination, he realized that habit had made of him an actor; that for a while—a long while—a space of time he could not at the moment conveniently compute—he had been playing a role merely because he had become accustomed to it.

Disaster had cast him for a part. For a long while he had been that part. Now he was still playing it from sheer force of habit. His tragedy had really become only the shadow of a memory. Already he had emerged from that shadow into the everyday outer world. But he had forgotten that he still wore a somber makeup and costume which in the sunshine might appear grotesque. No wonder the world thought him funny.

Glancing up from a perplexed and chagrined meditation he caught her eye—and found it penitent, troubled, and anxious.

“You’re quite right,” he said, smiling easily and naturally; “I am unintentionally funny. And I really didn’t know it—didn’t suspect it—until this moment.”

“Oh,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean—I know you are often unhappy—”

“Nonsense!”

“You are! Anybody can see—and you really do not seem to be very old, either—when you smile—”

“I’m not very old,” he said, amused. “I’m not unhappy, either. If I ever was, the truth is that I’ve almost forgotten by this time what it was all about—”

“A woman,” she quoted, “between friends”—and checked herself, frightened that she had dared interpret Quair’s malice.

He changed countenance at that; the dull red of anger clouded his visage.

“Oh,” she faltered, “I was not saucy, only sorry.... I have been sorry for you so long—”

“Who intimated to you that a woman ever played any part in my career?”

“It’s generally supposed. I don’t know anything more than that. But I’ve been—sorry. Love is a very dreadful thing,” she said under her breath.

“Is it?” he asked, controlling a sudden desire to laugh.

“Don’t you think so?”

“I have not thought of it that way, recently.... I haven’t thought about it at all—for some years.... Have you?” he added, trying to speak gravely.

“Oh, yes. I have thought of it,” she admitted.

“And you conclude it to be a rather dreadful business?”

“Yes, it is.”

“How?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A girl usually loves the wrong man. To be poor is always bad enough, but to be in love, too, is really very dreadful. It usually finishes us—you know.”

“Are you in love?” he inquired, managing to repress his amusement.

“I could be. I know that much.” She went to the sink, turned on the water, washed her hands, and stood with dripping fingers looking about for a towel.

“I’ll get you one,” he said. When he brought it, she laughed and held out her hands to be dried.

“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.

She had remained, however, untouched; curious and amused, perhaps, yet quite satisfied, so far, to be amused; and entirely content with her own curiosity.

She coquetted when she thought it safe; learned many things she had not suspected; was more cautious afterwards, but still, at intervals, ventured to use her attractiveness as a natural lure, as an excuse, as a reason, as a weapon, when the probable consequences threatened no embarrassment or unpleasantness for her.

She was much liked, much admired, much attempted, and entirely untempted.

When the Make-up Club gave its annual play depicting the foibles of artists and writers in the public eye, Cecile White was always cast for a role which included singing and dancing.

On and off for the last year or two she had posed for Drene, had dropped into his studio to lounge about when he had no need of her professionally, and when she had half an hour of idleness confronting her.

As she stood there now on the model stand, gazing dreamily from his busy hands to his lean, intent features, it occurred to her that this day had not been a sample of their usual humdrum relations. From the very beginning of their business relations he had remained merely her employer, self-centered, darkly absorbed in his work, or, when not working, bored and often yawning. She had never come to know him any better than when she first laid eyes on him.

Always she had been a little interested in him, a little afraid, sometimes venturing an innocent audacity, out of sheer curiosity concerning the effect on him. But never had she succeeded in stirring him to any expression of personal feeling in regard to herself, one way or the other.

Probably he had no personal feeling concerning her. It seemed odd to her; model and master thrown alone together, day after day, usually became friends in some degree. But there had been nothing at all of camaraderie in their relationship, only a colorless, professional sans-gene, the informality of intimacy without the kindly essence of personal interest on his part.

He paid her wages promptly; said good morning when she came, and good night when she went; answered her questions when she asked them seriously; relapsed into indifference or into a lazy and not too civil badinage when she provoked him to it; and that was all.

He never complimented her, never praised her; yet he must have thought her a good model, or he would not have continued to send for her.

“Do you think me pretty?” she had asked one day, saucily invading one of his yawning silences.

“I think you’re pretty good,” he replied, “as a model. You’d be quite perfect if you were also deaf and dumb.”

That had been nearly a year ago. She thought of it now, a slight heat in her cheeks as she remembered the snub, and her almost childish amazement, and the hurt and offended silence which lasted all that morning, but which, if he noticed at all, was doubtless entirely gratifying to him.

“May I rest?”

“If it’s necessary.”

She sprang lightly to the floor walked around behind him, and stood looking at his work.

“Do you want to know my opinion?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, with unexpected urbanity; “if you are clever enough to have an opinion. What is it?”

She said, looking at the wax figure of herself and speaking with deliberation:

“In the last hour you have made out of a rather commonplace study an entirely spontaneous and charming creation.”

“What!” he exclaimed, his face reddening with pleasure at her opinion, and with surprise at her mode of expressing it.

“It’s quite true. That dancing figure is wholly charming. It is no study; it is pure creation.”

He knew it; was a little thrilled that she, representing to him an average and mediocre public, should recognize it so intelligently.

“As though,” she continued, “you had laid aside childish things.”

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