es and falls
out of bed."

"I know she does," Collier Pratt said, "but she picks herself up
again."

"Not always," Nancy said; "don't you want to come in and help me put
her back?"

"I do not," Collier Pratt said with unnecessary emphasis.

Nancy was of two minds about picking the child up in her little white
night-gown and bringing her out to her father, flushed and lovely with
sleep as she was. It was Collier Pratt's baby she had in her arms; her
charge, the child she loved, and the child of the man she loved, a
part of the miracle that was slowly revealing itself to her; but a
sudden sharp instinct warned her that her impulse was ill-timed.

"I had forgotten the child was here," Collier Pratt said when she
returned to him.

"I hadn't," Nancy said happily.

"I suppose she has to be somewhere, poor little wretch," he said.
"She's an extraordinarily picturesque baby, isn't she?"

Nancy crept nearer to him. He stood leaning against the mantel and
frowning slightly, but he made no move toward her again.

"She doesn't have nightmares often now," Nancy said with stiffening
lips. "She used to have them almost every night, but by watching her
diet carefully we have practically eliminated them."

"The Hitty person doesn't like me," Collier Pratt said. "_Pas du
tout_. She treats me as if I were a book agent."

"She loves Sheila, she--she'd do anything for her."

"The women who do not find me attractive are likely to find me quite
conspicuously otherwise, I am afraid." He had been carefully avoiding
Nancy's eyes, but her little cry at this drew his gaze. She was
standing before him, slowly blanching as if he had struck her,
absolutely still except for the trembling of her lips.

"What am I," he said, "to hold out against all the forces of the
Universe? Do you love me, Nancy, do you love me?"

"You know," she whispered, once more in the shelter of the shabby
shoulder.

"This is madness," he swore as he kissed her; "we're both out of our
senses, Nancy; don't you know it?"

"The picture is done, anyhow," she said. "I don't know how I can ever
bear to look it in the face, but I shall have to."

"It's the best work I've ever done," he said.

"I don't look like it now, do I?"

He held her off to see.

"No, by jove, you don't. It's gone, now--just that thing I painted."

"How do I look now?"

"Much more commonplace from the point of view from which I painted
you. Much more beautiful though,--much more beau