smoking a cigarette and looking out over the housetops. He watched her
until she rose, looked about her with a disdainful, crafty smile, and
turned out the light.

The next morning, when Miss Bower went out, Hedger followed her. Her
white skirt gleamed ahead of him as she sauntered about the Square. She
sat down behind the Garibaldi statue and opened a music book she carried.
She turned the leaves carelessly, and several times glanced in his
direction. He was on the point of going over to her, when she rose
quickly and looked up at the sky. A flock of pigeons had risen from
somewhere in the crowded Italian quarter to the south, and were wheeling
rapidly up through the morning air, soaring and dropping, scattering and
coming together, now grey, now white as silver, as they caught or
intercepted the sunlight. She put up her hand to shade her eyes and
followed them with a kind of defiant delight in her face.

Hedger came and stood beside her. "You've surely seen them before?"

"Oh, yes," she replied, still looking up. "I see them every day from my
windows. They always come home about five o'clock. Where do they live?"

"I don't know. Probably some Italian raises them for the market. They
were here long before I came, and I've been here four years."

"In that same gloomy room? Why didn't you take mine when it was vacant?"

"It isn't gloomy. That's the best light for painting."

"Oh, is it? I don't know anything about painting. I'd like to see your
pictures sometime. You have such a lot in there. Don't they get dusty,