finish my artist's life with your face; but I shall want a bit of
those shoulders, too. . . You hear, Allegre, I must have a bit of
her shoulders, too. I can see through the cloth that they are
divine. If they aren't divine I will eat my hat. Yes, I will do
your head and then--nunc dimittis.'

"These were the first words with which the world greeted her, or
should I say civilization did; already both her native mountains
and the cavern of oranges belonged to a prehistoric age. 'Why
don't you ask him to come this afternoon?' Allegre's voice
suggested gently. 'He knows the way to the house.'

"The old man said with extraordinary fervour, 'Oh, yes I will,'
pulled up his horse and they went on. She told me that she could
feel her heart-beats for a long time. The remote power of that
voice, those old eyes full of tears, that noble and ruined face,
had affected her extraordinarily she said. But perhaps what
affected her was the shadow, the still living shadow of a great
passion in the man's heart.

"Allegre remarked to her calmly: 'He has been a little mad all his
life.'"



CHAPTER III



Mills lowered the hands holding the extinct and even cold pipe