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somewhat arch smile. "I can't think of any way," said she, "unless it would be by posing for me." "There's another way," he answered, "and the only one I'd care about." She suddenly became absorbed in the contemplation of the paints on her palette, at which she made little thrusts with a brush; and at last she queried, doubtfully, "How?" "I've heard or read," he answered, "that no artist ever rises to the highest, you know, until after experiencing some great love. I--can't you think of any other way besides the posing?" She brought the brush close to her eyes, minutely inspecting its point for a moment, then seemed to take in his expression with a swift sweeping glance, resumed the examination of the brush, and finally looked him in the face again, a little red spot glowing in her cheek, and a glint of fire in her eye. I was too dense to understand it, but I felt that there was a trace of resentment in her mien. "Oh, I don't know about that!" she said. "There may be some other way. I haven't met all your friends, and you may be the means of introducing me to the very man." I did not hear his reply, though I confess I tried to catch it. She resumed her work of copying one of the paintings. This she did in a mechanical sort of way, slowly, and with crabbed touches, but with some success. I thought her lacking in anything like control over the medium in which she worked; but the results promised rather well. He seemed annoyed at her sudden accession of industry, and looked sometimes quizzically at her work, often hungrily at her. Once or twice he touched her hand as she stepped near him; but she neither reproved him nor allowed him to retain it. I felt that I had taken her measure by this time. She was some Western country girl, well supplied with money, blindly groping toward the career of an artist. Her accent, her dress, and her occupation told of her origin and station in life, and of her ambitions. The blindness I guessed,--partly from the manner of her work, partly from the inherent probabilities of the case. If the young man had been eliminated from this problem with which my love-sick imagination was busying itself, I could have followed her back confidently to some rural neighborhood, and to a year or two of painting portraits from photographs, and landscapes from "studies," and exhibiting them at the county fair; the teaching of some pupils, in an unnecessary but conscientiously thrifty effort t
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