"Do _you_ mean it?" asked Lewis.

Vi nodded.

"Name your own time."

"To-morrow," said Vi, "at ten."

The following morning Lewis was up early, putting his great, bare studio
in fitting order, and trying to amplify and secure the screened-in
corner which previous models had frequently damned as a purely tentative
dressing-room. Promptly at ten Vi appeared.

"Where's your maid?" asked Lewis. "You've simply got to have a maid
along for this sort of thing."

"You're wrong," said Vi. "It's just the sort of thing one doesn't have a
maid for. It's easier to trust two to keep quiet than to keep a maid
from vain imaginings. And--it's a lot less expensive."

"Well," said Lewis, "where's your costume?"

"Here," said Vi, "in my recticule."

They laughed. Ten minutes later Vi appeared in her filmy costume.
Lewis's face no longer smiled. He was sitting on a bench at the farther
end of the room, solemnly smoking a pipe. He did not seem to notice that
Vi's whole body was suffused, nervous.