He seemed to enjoy himself like a boy, with her companionship,
wholly, heartily, without any motive other than the pleasure of the
moment; and so, little by little, she gave herself up to it too, in
the same fashion, unguardedly, frankly, innocently revealing herself
to him by degrees as their comradeship became deliciously
unembarrassed.

He was making a full length study in clay now. All day long she sat
there enthroned, her eyes partly closed, the head lifted a trifle
and fallen back, and her lovely hands resting on her heart--and
sometimes she strove to imagine something of the divine moment which
she was embodying; pondering, dreaming, wondering; and sometimes, in
the stillness, through her trance crept a thrill, subtle, exquisite,
as though in faint perception of the heavenly moment. And once, into
her halfdreaming senses came the soft stirring of wings, and she
opened her eyes and looked up, startled and thrilled.

But it was only a pigeon which had come through the great window
from the cote on the adjacent roof and which circled above her on
whimpering wings for a moment and then sheered out into the
sunlight.

They dined together at a roof garden that evening, the music was
particularly and surprisingly good, and what surprised him even more
was that she knew it and spoke of it. And continued speaking of
music, he not interrupting.

Reticent hitherto concerning her antecedents he learned now
something of them--and inferred more; nothing unusual--a musical