ess----"

"Wicked woman," murmured Vina.

"When the thought comes that I should be a cashier in a restaurant,"
the other went on, in her sadly smiling way, speaking altogether to
Bedient, "I come to this place. Here is an _artist_, Mr. Bedient. Vina
has been working at these things for two years. She has still two years
to finish within her contract. These are her prayers; they will live in
the transept of a great cathedral."

"Don't mind the Grey One, Mr. Bedient," Vina Nettleton said lightly.
"We are dear friends."

Bedient lost himself in the study of the veins which showed through the
delicate white skin of Vina's temples. He was moved to personal
interest by this woman's work. The room was intense with the figures
about, and the artist's being. He was sure Marguerite Grey did not know
all that concerned her friend, the full meaning, for instance, of the
shadows that began at the inner corners of her eyes and flared like
dark wings outward. There was something tremendous in the frail, small
creature, an inner brightness that shone forth through her white skin,
as light through porcelain. Bedient granted quickly that there was
power here to make the world remember the name of Vina Nettleton; but
he knew she was not giving _all_ to these creatures of clay. He had
never sensed such a mingling of emotions and spirit.... "Pure spirit,"
the Grey One had said. Possibly it was so to the world, but he would
have said that the spirit of Vina Nettleton was fed by emotion--seas,
woods, fields, skies and rivers of emotion--and that mighty energies,
unused by the great task, roamed in nightly anguish.

Bedient moved raptly among the panels. He wondered how the artist had
made the light fall upon the dull clay, always where the Christ stood
or walked or hung.... "And how did you know He had such beautiful
hands?" he asked.

Vina Nettleton looked startled, and the Grey One came closer, saying:
"I'm glad you see that. To me the hands are a particular achievement.
Do you notice the fine modelling at the outer edges of the palms, and
the trailing length of the fingers?"

"Yes," said Bedient, "as if you could not quite tell where the flesh
ended and the healing magnetism began."

Vina Nettleton sat down upon one of the steps of a ladder and stared at
him. The Grey One added:

"And yet you cannot say they are overdone. They are the hands of an
artist, but not assertively so."

"It is my limitation that I don't know," he sai