hrough
the great rooms, part of the tourist crowd. The handsome man limped, a
student's stoop across his shoulders, by the side of the small blond
girl with her student cape and her soft hat, her hair like chrysanthemum
petals. Fairfax took occasion in the portrait room to tell her that she
looked like a Greuze. Nora Scarlet was an appreciative sightseer.

"Oh, if I could only paint," she murmured, "if I could only paint!" and
she clasped her woollen gloves prayerfully before the portraits of the
Filles de France. But the Nattiers and the Fragonards mocked her, and
the green portfolio under Fairfax's arm mocked her still more. Side by
side, they penetrated into the little rooms where a Queen lived,
intrigued, loved, and played her part. And Fairfax had his envies before
Houdon's head of Marie Antoinette.

The wide, sweet, leaf-strewn alleys were very nearly deserted where they
stood, for the day had grown colder and the winter sunlight left early
to give place to a long still winter evening. Their footsteps made no
sound on the brown carpet of the park. Antony had not stopped to ask
what kind of a woman the girl student was when he spontaneously left his
lonely seat in the restaurant to take his place at her side, but
everything she said to him revealed a frank, innocent mind. He saw that
she had come with him without thinking twice, and he should have been
touched by it. He drew her arm within his as they passed the great
fountain. The basin was empty and its curve as round and smooth as human
lips.

"Now," he said, "the time has come to talk of you and what you want to
do and can do, and how you can do it."

"That's awfully kind."

"No, those are just the questions that I have to ask myself every day
and find on some days that I haven't got the answer. It's a riddle, you
know. We don't every day quite find the answer to it. I reckon we would
never go on if we did, but it's good sport to ask and try to find out,
and, believe me, Miss Nora Scarlet, two are better than one at a riddle,
aren't they?"

"Oh, very much." They went along leisurely and after a second she
continued: "It's lonely in Paris for a girl who doesn't want to go in
for lots of things, and I have been getting muddled. But the worst
muddle is pounds, shillings and pence"--she laughed musically--"it's
reduced to pence at last, but I don't find the muddle reduced a bit."

"You want to do portraits?" he asked.

"Yes, I haven't an idea about anythi