dumb-waiter down with his scribbled memorandum, and came wandering back
with long, cool glances at his canvas and the work he had done on it.

"I mean to make a stunning thing of it," he remarked, eying the huge
chassis critically. "All this--deviltry--whatever it is inside of
me--must come out somehow. And that canvas is the place for it." He
laughed and sat down opposite her:

"Man is born to folly, Miss West--born full of it. I get rid of mine on
canvas. It's a safer outlet for original sin than some other ways."

She lay back in her antique gilded chair, hands extended along the arms,
looking at him with a smile that was still shy.

"My idea of you--of an artist--was so different," she said.

"There are all kinds, mostly the seriously inspired and humourless
variety who makes a mystic religion of a very respectable profession.
This world is full of pale, enraptured artists; full of muscular,
thumb-smearing artists; full of dreamy weavers of visions, usually
deficient in spinal process; full of unwashed little inverts to whom the
world really resembles a kaleidoscope full of things that wiggle--"

They began to laugh, he with a singular delight in her comprehension of
his idle, irresponsible chatter, she from sheer pleasure in listening
and looking at this man who was so different from anybody she had ever
known--and, thank God!--so young.

And when the bell rang and the clatter announced the advent of luncheon,
she settled in her chair with a little shiver of happiness, blushing at