e easel, puts a color on it, and steps back on the
other side.) The dress isn't made to stand out enough yet. We don't see
the living body under it.

SCHOEN. I make no doubt that the workmanship is good.

SCHWARZ. If you'll step this way....

SCHOEN. (Rising.) You must have told her regular ghost-stories.

SCHWARZ. As far back as you can.

SCHOEN. (Stepping back, knocks down the canvas that was leaning against
the lower easel.) Excuse me--

SCHWARZ. (Picking it up.) That's all right.

SCHOEN. (Surprised.) What is that?

SCHWARZ. Do you know her?

SCHOEN. No. (Schwarz sets the picture on the easel. It is of a lady
dressed as Pierrot with a long shepherd's crook in her hand.)

SCHWARZ. A costume-picture.

SCHOEN. But, really, you've succeeded with =her=.

SCHWARZ. You know her?

SCHOEN. No. And in that costume--?

SCHWARZ. It isn't nearly finished yet. (Schoen nods.) What would you
have? While she is posing for me I have the pleasure of entertaining
her husband.

SCHOEN. What?

SCHWARZ. We talk about art, of course,--to complete my good fortune!

SCHOEN. But how did you make such a charming acquaintance?

SCHWARZ. As they're generally made. An ancient, tottering little man
drops in on me here to know if I can paint his wife. Why, of course,
were she as wrinkled as Mother Earth! Next day at ten prompt the doors
fly open, and the fat-belly drives this little beauty in before him. I
can feel even now how my knees shook. Then comes a sap-green lackey,
stiff as a ramrod, with a package under his arm. Where is the
dressing-room? Imagine my plight. I open the door there (pointing
left). Just luck that everything was in order. The sweet thing vanishes
into it, and the old fellow posts himself outside as a bastion. Two
minutes later out she steps in this Pierrot. (Shaking his head.) I
never saw anything like it. (He goes left and stares in at the
bedroom.)

SCHOEN. (Who has followed him with his eyes.) And the fat-belly stands
guard?

SCHWARZ. (Turning round.) The whole body in harmony with that
impossible costume as if it had come into the world in it! Her way of
burying her elbows in her pockets, of lifting her little feet from the
rug,--the blood often shoots to my head....

SCHOEN. One can see that in the picture.

SCHWARZ. (Shaking his head.) People like us, you know--

SCHOEN. Here the model is mistress of the conversation.

SCHWARZ. She has never yet opened her mouth.

SCHOEN. Is it possibl