Under her light hand she felt the impatient movement of his shoulders,
and her hand fell away.

"Don't you care for it, now that it's finished?" she asked, wondering.

"I'm devilish sick of it," he said, so savagely that every nerve in her
recoiled with a tiny shock. She remained silent, motionless, awaiting
his pleasure. He set his palette, frowning. She had never before seen
him like this.

After a while she said, quietly: "If you are waiting for me, please tell
me what you expect me to do, because I don't know, Kelly."

"Oh, just stand over there," he said, vaguely; "just walk about and stop
anywhere when you feel like stopping."

She walked a few steps at hazard, partly turned to look back at him with
a movement adorable in its hesitation.

"Don't budge!" he said, brusquely.

"Am I to remain like this?"

"Exactly."

He picked up a bit of white chalk, went over to her, knelt down, and
traced on the floor the outline of her shoes.

Then he went back, and, with his superbly cool assurance, began to draw
with his brush upon the untouched canvas.

From where she stood, and as far as she could determine, he seemed,
however, to work less rapidly than usual--with a trifle less
decision--less precision. Another thing she noticed; the calm had
vanished from his face. The vivid animation, the cool self-confidence,
the half indolent relapse into careless certainty--all familiar phases
of the man as she had so often seen him painting--were now not
perceptible. There seemed to be, too, a curious lack of authority about
his brush strokes at intervals--moments of grave perplexity, indecision
almost resembling the hesitation of inexperience--and for the first time
she saw in his gray eyes the narrowing concentration of mental
uncertainty.

It seemed to her sometimes as though she were looking at a total
stranger. She had never thought of him as having any capacity for the
ordinary and lesser ills, vanities, and vexations--the trivial worries
that beset other artists.

"Louis?" she said, full of curiosity.

"What?" he demanded, ungraciously.

"You are not one bit like yourself to-day."

He made no comment. She ventured again:

"Do I hold the pose properly?"

"Yes, thanks," he said, absently.

"May I talk?"

"I'd rather you didn't, Valerie, just at present."

"All right," she rejoined, cheerfully; but her pretty eyes watched him
very earnestly, a little troubled.

When she was tired the pose ended; that