The Wizard's Touch

BY ALICE BROWN


Jerome Wilmer sat in the garden, painting in a background, with the
carelessness of ease. He seemed to be dabbing little touches at the
canvas, as a spontaneous kind of fun not likely to result in anything
serious, save, perhaps, the necessity of scrubbing them off afterwards,
like a too adventurous child. Mary Brinsley, in her lilac print, stood a
few paces away, the sun on her hair, and watched him.

"Paris is very becoming to you," she said at last.

"What do you mean?" asked Wilmer, glancing up, and then beginning to
consider her so particularly that she stepped aside, her brows knitted,
with an admonishing,

"Look out! you'll get me into the landscape."

"You're always in the landscape. What do you mean about Paris?"

"You look so--so travelled, so equal to any place, and Paris in
particular because it's the finest."

Other people also had said that, in their various ways. He had the
distinction set by nature upon a muscular body and a rather small head,
well poised. His hair, now turning gray, grew delightfully about the
temples, and though it was brushed back in the style of a man who never
looks at himself twice when once will do, it had a way of seeming