rself, at him; a slight sense of fear,
then a brief and sudden access of shyness, succeeded by the by glow
of an emotion new and strange and deep. And this, in turn, by vague
bewilderment again, in which there was both a hint of fear, and a tinge
of something exquisite.

Within herself she was dimly conscious that a certain gaiety, an
irresponsibility and lightness had died out in her, perhaps permanently,
yet leaving no void. What it was that replaced these she could not
name--she only was conscious that if these had been subdued by a newer
knowledge, with a newer seriousness, this unaccustomed gravity had left
her heart no less tender, and had deepened her capacity for emotion
to depths as profound and unexplored as the sudden mystery of their
discovery by herself.

Always, now, while she posed, she was looking at him with a still
intentness, as though he really wore a mask and she, breathlessly
vigilant, watched for the moment when he might forget and lift it.

But during the weeks that followed, if the mask were indeed only the
steady preoccupation that his visage wore, she seemed to learn nothing
more about him when his features lost their dark absorption and he
caught her eye and smiled. No, the smile revealed nothing except another
mask under the more serious cast of concentration--only another
disguise that covered whatever this man might truly be deeper down--this
masculine and unknown invader of frontiers surrendered ere she had
understood they were even besieged.

And during these weeks in early spring their characteristics, even
characters, seemed to have shifted curiously and become reversed; his
was now the light, irresponsible, half-mocking badinage--almost boyishly
boisterous at times, as, for instance, when he stepped forward after the
pose and swung her laughingly from the model-platform to her corner on
the sofa.

"You pretty and clever little thing," he said, "why are you becoming so
serious and absent-minded?"

"Am I becoming so?"

"You are. You oughtn't to: you've made a new and completely different
man of me."

As though that were an admirable achievement, or even of any particular
importance. And yet she seemed to think it was both of these when,
resting against him, within the circle of his arm, still shy and silent
under the breathless poignancy of an emotion which ever seemed to sound
within her depths unsuspected.

But when he said that she had made a new and completely different