will do what you require of me. I meant to answer."
"Do you mean that you are in a position to make a time contract with me?—provided you prove to be what I need?"
She nodded uncertainly.
"I'm beginning the ceiling, lunettes, and panels for the Byzantine Theatre," he added, sternly stroking his short mustache, "and under those circumstances I suppose you know what a contract between us means."
She nodded again, but in her eyes was bewilderment, and in her heart, fear.
"Yes," she managed to say, "I think I understand."
"Very well. I merely want to say that a model threw me down hard in the very middle of the Bimmington's ball-room. Max Schindler put on a show, and she put for the spot-light. She'd better stay put," he added grimly: "she'll never have another chance in your guild."
Then the frown vanished, and the exceedingly engaging smile glimmered in his eyes:
"You wouldn't do such a thing as that to me," he added; "would you, Miss West?"
"Oh, no," she replied, not clearly comprehending the enormity of the Schindler recruit's behaviour.
"And you'll stand by me if our engagement goes through?"
"Yes, I—will try to."
"Good business! Now, if you really are what I have an idea you are, I'll know pretty quick whether I can use you for the Byzantine job." He rose, walked over to a pair of closed folding doors and opened them. "You can undress in there," he said. "I think you will find everything you need."
For a second she sat rigid, her black-gloved hands doubled, her eyes fastened on him as though fascinated. He had already turned and sauntered over to one of several easels where he picked up the lump of charcoal in its silver foil.
The colour began to come back into her face—swifter, more swiftly: the vast blank window with its amber curtains stared at her; she lifted her tragic gaze and saw the sheet of glass above swimming in crystal light. Through it clouds were dissolving in the bluest of skies; against it a spiderweb of pendant cords drooped from the high ceiling; and she saw the looming mystery of huge canvases beside which stepladders rose surmounted by little crow's-nests where the graceful oval of palettes curved, tinted with scraped brilliancy.
"What a dreamer you are!" he called across the studio to her. "The light is fine, now. Hadn't we better take advantage of it?"
She managed to find her footing; contrived to rise, to move with apparent self-possession toward the folding doors.
"Better hurry," he said, pleasantly. "If you're what I need we might start things now. I am all ready for the sort of figure I expect you have."
She stepped inside the room and became desperately busy for a moment trying to close the doors; but either her hands had suddenly become powerless or they shook too much; and when he turned, almost impatiently, from his easel to see what all that rattling meant, she shrank hastily aside into the room beyond, keeping out of his view.
The room was charming—not like the studio, but modern and fresh and dainty with chintz and flowered wall-paper and the graceful white furniture of a bed-room. There was a flowered screen there, too. Behind it stood a chair, and onto this she sank, laid her hands for an instant against her burning face, then stooped and, scarcely knowing what she was about, began to untie her patent-leather shoes.
He remained standing at his easel, very busy with his string and lump of charcoal; but after a while it occurred to him that she was taking an annoyingly long time about a simple matter.
"What on earth is the trouble?" he called. "Do you realise you've been in there a quarter of an hour?"
She made no answer. A second later he thought he heard an indistinct sound—and it disquieted him.
"Miss West?"
There was no reply.
Impatient, a little disturbed, he walked across to the folding doors; and the same low, suppressed sound caught his ear.
"What in the name of—" he began, walking into the room; and halted, amazed.
She sat all huddled together behind the screen, partly undressed, her face hidden in her hands; and between the slender fingers tears ran down brightly.
"Are you ill?" he asked, anxiously.
After a moment she slowly shook her head.
"Then—what in the name of Mike—"
"P-please forgive me. I—I will be ready in a in-moment—if you wouldn't mind going out—"
"Are you ill? Answer me?"
"N-no."
"Has anything disturbed you so that you don't feel up to posing to-day?"
"No…. I—am—almost ready—if you will go out—"
He considered her, uneasy and perplexed. Then:
"All right," he said, briefly. "Take your own time, Miss West."
At his easel, fussing with yard-stick and crayon, he began to square off his canvas, muttering to himself:
"What the deuce is the matter with that girl? Nice moment to nurse secret sorrows or blighted affections. There's always something wrong with the best lookers…. And she is a real beauty—or I miss my guess." He went on ruling off, measuring, grumbling, until slowly there came over him the sense of the nearness of another person. He had not heard her enter, but he turned around, knowing she was there.
She stood silent, motionless, as though motion terrified her and inertia were salvation. Her dark hair rippled to her waist; her white arms hung limp, yet the fingers had curled till every delicate nail was pressed deep into the pink palm. She was trying to look at him. Her face was as white as a flower.
"All right," he said under his breath, "you're practically faultless. I suppose you realise it!"
A scarcely perceptible shiver passed over her entire body, then, as he stepped back, his keen artist's gaze narrowing, there stole over her a delicate flush, faintly staining her from brow to ankle, transfiguring the pallour exquisitely, enchantingly. And her small head drooped forward, shadowed by her hair.
"You're what I want," he said. "You're about everything I require in colour and form and texture."
She neither spoke nor moved as much as an eyelash.
"Look here, Miss West," he said in a slightly excited voice, "let's go about this thing intelligently." He swung another easel on its rollers, displaying a sketch in soft, brilliant colours—a multitude of figures amid a swirl of sunset-tinted clouds and patches of azure sky.
"You're intelligent," he went on with animation,—"I saw that—somehow or other—though you haven't said very much." He laughed, and laid his hand on the painted canvas beside him:
"You're a model, and it's not necessary to inform you that this Is only a preliminary sketch. Your experience tells you that. But it is necessary to tell you that it's the final composition. I've decided on this arrangement for the ceiling: You see for yourself that you're perfectly fitted to stand or sit for all these floating, drifting, cloud-cradled goddesses.
