"We're going to begin _now_!--thank Heaven. So if you'll be kind enough
to help move forward the ceiling canvas--"

O'Hara glanced up carelessly at the swathed and motionless figure above,
then calmly spat upon his hands and laid hold of one side of the huge
canvas indicated. The painter took the other side.

"Now, O'Hara, careful! Back off a little!--don't let it sway!
There--that's where I want it. Get a ladder and clamp the tops. Pitch it
a little forward--more!--stop! Fix those pully ropes; I'll make things
snug below."

[Illustration: "'Now, Miss West,' he said decisively."]

For ten minutes they worked deftly, rapidly, making fast the great blank
canvas which had been squared and set with an enormous oval in heavy
outline.

From her lofty eyrie she looked down at them as in a dream while they
shifted other enormous framed canvases and settled the oval one into
place. Everything below seemed to be on rubber wheels or casters,
easels, stepladders, colour cabinets, even the great base where the oval
set canvas rested.

She looked up at the blue sky. Sparrows dropped out of the brilliant
void into unseen canons far below from whence came the softened roar of
traffic. Northward the city spread away between its rivers, glittering
under the early April sun; the Park lay like a grey and green map set
with, the irregular silver of water; beyond, the huge unfinished
cathedral loomed dark against the big white hospital of St. Luke;