surprise
at the girl's visible excitement. Then he added abruptly: "I've half a
mind to give you a job as my private model!"

Through the rosy confusion of her face her grey eyes were fixed on him
with a wistful intensity, almost painful. For into her empty heart and
starved mind had suddenly flashed a dazzling revelation. Opportunity
was knocking at her door. Her chance had come! Perhaps it had been
inherited from her mother--God knows!--this deep, deep hunger for
things beautiful--this passionate longing for light and knowledge.

Mere contact with such a man as Barres had already made endurable a
solitary servitude which had been subtly destroying her child's
spirit, and slowly dulling the hunger in her famished mind. And now to
aid him--to feel that he was using her--was to arise from her rags of
ignorance and emerge upright into the light which filled that
wonder-house wherein he dwelt, and on the dark threshold of which her
lonely little soul had crouched so long in silence.

* * * * *

She looked up almost blindly at the man who, in careless friendliness,
had already opened his door to her, had permitted her to read his
wonder-books, had allowed her to sit unreproved and silent from sheer
happiness, and gaze unsatiated upon the wondrous things within the
magic mansion where he dwelt.

And now to serve this man; to aid him, to creep into the light in
which he stood and strive to learn and see!--the thought already had
produced a delicate intoxication in the child, and she gazed up at
Barres from the sunny garden with her naked soul in her eyes. Which
confused, perplexed, and embarrassed him.

"Come on up," he said briefly. "I'll tell your father over the
'phone."

* * * * *

She entered without a sound, closed the door which he had left open
for her, advanced across the thick-meshed rug. She still wore her blue
gingham apron; her bobbed hair, full of ruddy lights, intensified the
whiteness of her throat. In her arms she cradled the Prophet, who
stared solemnly at Barres out of depthless green eyes.

"Upon my word," thought Barres to himself, "I believe I have found a
model and an uncommon one!"

Dulcie, watching his expression, smiled slightly and stroked the
Prophet.

"I'll paint you that way! Don't stir," said the young fellow
pleasantly. "Just stand where you are, Dulcie. You're quite all right
as you are----" He lifted a half-length ca