eet before his eyes.
He did not even see the print, but he persisted, trying to banish his
restless thoughts.

Heinrich, solicitously brushing and folding Karl's coat, waited. The
artist looked at him impatiently:

"Tell Ma'm'selle Mimi I shall not need her to-day. She may go."

"Yes, Monsieur," Heinrich said.

The servant stepped to the door of the studio and threw it open. He
called out:

"Ma'm'selle, Monsieur Karl says he will not need you to-day; you may go
home."

Heinrich withdrew. Karl lay at full length on the couch, holding the
paper before him.

A young woman, daintily featured, with rounded figure whose lines showed
through her close-fitting costume, burst into the room.

Although conscious of her presence and irritated, Karl did not look. He
pretended to be absorbed in his newspaper. Mimi looked at him and
waited, but as he did not speak, she ventured timidly:

"Aren't you going to paint me to-day?"

"Er--no, not to-day."

"Do you not love me any more, Karl?"

The newspaper rattled with the artist's impatience and irritation, but
he did not answer. Mimi approached him.

"You do not love me; you have ceased to care for me. Ah, Karl, when you
loved me you painted me every day. Now you paint nothing but
landscapes."

[Illustration: MIMI: "YOU DO NOT LOVE ME; YOU HAVE CEASED TO CARE FOR
ME."--Page 16.

By Permission of Henry W. Savage.]

Karl forced a laugh.

"Nonsense!" he said. "You talk like a silly child, Mimi."

"You say that now, but you did not say such things when you loved me,
Karl. It is always the way with us poor models. At first it is, 'Ah,
what shoulders, what beautiful coloring, what perfect ankles!' Then you
paint us every day.

"And then it is, 'What in the world have you done with your figure? It
is all angles!' or, 'What on earth have you put on your face? It is as
yellow as old parchment.' And then you paint landscapes."

Mimi burst into tears, and vigorously dabbed her eyes with her
handkerchief. She was an extremely pretty girl of the bourgeois type,
with heavy coils of straw-colored hair piled high on her head, and big
blue eyes that were quick to weep.

Karl arose, threw aside his paper and essayed to comfort her.

"There, there," he said, patting her shoulder, "don't cry, Mimi; you are
full of folly to-day."

As quick to smile as she had been to cry, Mimi unveiled her eyes and
looked at him eagerly, her lips parting over her white teeth.

"Then you do lo