"I cannot tell. One fancies things, and it was all twelve years ago."

"It was all twelve years ago," he repeated musingly after her. He was
eager to know, yet he would not ask.

"You are a clever artist," she said presently. "You want a subject for a
picture. You have told me so. You are ambitious. If you were a dramatist,
I would give you three acts of a play--the fourth is yet to come; but you
shall have a scene to paint if you think it strong enough."

His eyes flashed. The artist's instinct was alive. In the eyes of the
woman was a fire which sent a glow over all her features. In herself she
was an inspiration to him, but he had not told her that. "Oh, yes," was
his reply, "I want it, if I may paint you in the scene."

"You may paint me in the scene," she said quietly. Then, as if it suddenly
came to her that she would be giving a secret into this man's hands, she
added, "That is, if you want me for a model merely."

"Mrs. Detlor," he said, "you may trust me, on my honor."

She looked at him, not searchingly, but with a clear, honest gaze such as
one sees oftenest in the eyes of children, yet she had seen the
duplicities of life backward and said calmly, "Yes, I can trust you."

"An artist's subject ought to be sacred to him," he said. "It becomes
himself, and then it isn't hard--to be silent."

They walked for a few moments, saying nothing. The terrace was filling