"At what I said about your being a model."

"Not a bit," said he. "If I hadn't wanted to know your opinion, I
wouldn't have asked you."

She brightened. "You really wanted to know what I thought?"

"Naturally," said Paul. "You're the most commonsense girl I've ever
met."

Paul walked soberly home. Jane accompanied him--on wings.

On Monday Paul went to the Life School and stripped with a heavy
heart. Jane was right. It was not a man's job. The fact, too, of his
doing it lowered him in her esteem, and though he had no romantic
thoughts whatever with regard to Jane, he enjoyed being Lord
Paramount in her eyes. He went into the studio and took up his pose;
and as he stood on the model throne, conspicuous, glaring, the one
startling central object, Higgins's "How beastly!" came like a
material echo and smote him in the face. He felt like Adam when he
first proceeded to his primitive tailoring. A wave of shame ran
through him. He looked around the great silent room, at the rows of
students, each in front of an easel, using his naked body for their
purposes. A phrase flashed across his mind--in three years his
reading had brought vocabulary--they were using his physical body
for their spiritual purposes. For the moment he hated them all
fiercely. They were a band of vampires. Habit and discipline alone
saved him from breaking his pose and fleeing headlong. But there he
was fixed, like marble, in an athlete's attitude, showing rippling