I saw he was mocking, and threatened him with a mahl-stick, but he only
laughed and changed the subject.

"Stay to lunch. Genevieve will be here directly."

"I saw her going to early mass," I said, "and she looked as fresh and
sweet as that lily--before you destroyed it."

"Do you think I destroyed it?" said Boris gravely.

"Destroyed, preserved, how can we tell?"

We sat in the corner of a studio near his unfinished group of the
"Fates." He leaned back on the sofa, twirling a sculptor's chisel and
squinting at his work.

"By the way," he said, "I have finished pointing up that old academic
Ariadne, and I suppose it will have to go to the Salon. It's all I have
ready this year, but after the success the 'Madonna' brought me I feel
ashamed to send a thing like that."

The "Madonna," an exquisite marble for which Genevieve had sat, had been
the sensation of last year's Salon. I looked at the Ariadne. It was a
magnificent piece of technical work, but I agreed with Boris that the
world would expect something better of him than that. Still, it was
impossible now to think of finishing in time for the Salon that splendid
terrible group half shrouded in the marble behind me. The "Fates" would
have to wait.

We were proud of Boris Yvain. We claimed him and he claimed us on the