mond-shaped
eyes.

"Why didn't you come to me?" he said.

"Tell you the truth, Querida, I would have if I'd known then that you
were painting portraits of half of upper Fifth Avenue. Besides," he
added, naively, "that was before I began to see you in the grand tier
at the opera every week."

"It was before I sat anywhere except in the gallery," said Querida with
a humorous shrug. "Until this winter I knew nobody, either. And very
often I washed my own handkerchiefs and dried them on the window pane. I
had only fame for my laundress and notoriety for my butcher."

"Hey?" said Allaire, a trifle out of countenance.

"It is very true. It cost me so much to paint and frame my pictures that
the prices they brought scarcely paid for models and materials." He
added, pleasantly: "I have dined more often on a box of crackers and a
jar of olives than at a table set with silver and spread with linen." He
laughed without affectation or bitterness:

"It has been a long road, Allaire--from a stable-loft studio to--" he
shrugged--"the 'Van Rypens' grand tier box, for example."

"How in God's name did you do it?" inquired Allaire, awed to the
momentary obliteration of envy.

"I--painted," said Querida, smiling.

"Sure. I know that. I suppose it was the hellish row made over your
canvases last winter that did the trick."

Querida's eyes were partly closed as though in retrospection. "Also," he
said, softly, "I painted a very fashionable woman--for nothing--and to
her entire satisfaction."

"That's the _real_ thing, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so.... Make two or three unlovely and unlovable old ladies
lovely and lovable--on canvas--for nothing. Then society will let you
slap its powdered and painted face--yes--permit you--other
liberties--if only you will paint it and sign your canvases and ask them
a wicked price for what you give them and--for what they yield to you."

Allaire's ruddy face grew ruddier; he grinned and passed a muscular hand
over his thick, handsome, fox-tinted hair.

"I wish I could get next," he said with a hard glance at Querida. "I'd
sting 'em."

"I would be very glad to introduce you to anybody I know," observed the
other.

"Do you mean that?"

"Why not. A man who has waited as I have for opportunity understands
what others feel who are still waiting."

"That's damn square of you, Querida."

"Oh, no, not square; just natural. The public table is big enough for
everybody."

Allaire thought a m