nds"--and checked herself,
frightened that she had dared interpret Quair's malice.

He changed countenance at that; the dull red of anger clouded his
visage.

"Oh," she faltered, "I was not saucy, only sorry.... I have been sorry
for you so long--"

"Who intimated to you that a woman ever played any part in my career?"

"It's generally supposed. I don't know anything more than that. But I've
been--sorry. Love is a very dreadful thing," she said under her breath.

"Is it?" he asked, controlling a sudden desire to laugh.

"Don't you think so?"

"I have not thought of it that way, recently.... I haven't thought
about it at all--for some years.... Have you?" he added, trying to speak
gravely.

"Oh, yes. I have thought of it," she admitted.

"And you conclude it to be a rather dreadful business?"

"Yes, it is."

"How?"

"Oh, I don't know. A girl usually loves the wrong man. To be poor is
always bad enough, but to be in love, too, is really very dreadful. It
usually finishes us--you know."

"Are you in love?" he inquired, managing to repress his amusement.

"I could be. I know that much." She went to the sink, turned on the
water, washed her hands, and stood with dripping fingers looking about
for a towel.

"I'll get you one," he said. When he brought it, she laughed and held
out her hands to be dried.

"Do you think you are a Sultana?" he inquired, draping the towel across
her outstretched arms and leaving it there.

"I thought perhaps you'd dry them," she said sweetly.

"Not in the business," he remarked; and lighted his pipe.

Her hands were her particular beauty, soft and snowy. She was much in
demand among painters, and had posed many times for pictures of the
Virgin, her hands usually resting against her breast.

Now she bestowed great care upon them, thoroughly drying each separate,
slender finger. Then she pushed back the heavy masses of her hair--"a
miracle of silk and sunshine," as Quair had whispered to her. That same
hair, also, was very popular among painters.

It was her figure that fascinated sculptors.

"Are you ready?" grunted Drene. Work presently recommenced.

She was entirely accustomed to praise from men, for her general
attractiveness, for various separate features in what really was an
unusually lovely ensemble.

She was also accustomed to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary
variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine feeling,
too, in its various