day and continue with her what had been begun--an intimacy which
depended upon his own will; a destiny for her which instinct
whispered was within his own control. But the next day found him at
work; models of various types, ages, and degrees of stupidity came,
posed, were paid, and departed; his studies for the groups in
collaboration with Guilder and Quair were approaching the intensely
interesting period--that stage of completion where composition has
been determined upon and the excitement of developing the
construction and the technical charm of modeling begins.

And evening always found him physically tired and mentally
satisfied--or perturbed--to the exclusion of such minor interests as
life is made of--dress, amusement, food, women. Between a man and a
beloved profession in full shock of embrace there is no real room
for these or thought of these.

He ate irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic
of creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples,
and grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid
New York summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt,
silent, darkly absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air
until some half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a
headache, set him in reluctant motion.

He heard of Cecile now and then; Cosby had used her for a figure on
a fountain destined to embellish the estate of a wealthy young man
somewhere or other; Greer employed her for the central figure of
Innocence in his lovely and springlike decoration for some Western
public edifice. Quair had met her several times at Manhattan Beach
with various and assorted wealthy young men.