ty, but there is also the element of inspiration, and whatever I may
have lacked in the one you have bountifully given me in the other. If
others should think the portrait a success, I must thank not myself but
you. And beyond the success of the picture itself, which at best can
only be for a day, you have given me what no one ever gave me before--you
must know what that may be."

"You are entirely welcome, I'm sure," his visitor replied, in
considerable embarrassment. It was not exactly what she meant to say,
and the egotism of the artist immediately misconstrued it.

"Helen," he said, "the painting of your portrait has been a perilous
adventure for me. Up to the time I began it, I lived in a world alone,
and I thought only of my art. My model was always a thing wholly
subordinate; after the picture was completed I never cared whether I ever
saw the subject again. But as you came here day after day, my art seemed
of less importance, and you came forward more and more. And finally I
have found that nothing matters--nothing counts--but you."

Miss Maitland did not answer. She was conscious only of wondering
whether she were going to be able to escape from that alcove before she
had expressed to her host her actual opinion of him and all his works,
and she rather feared her powers of repression would prove unequal to the
occasion. And her opinion of him was at its nadir. With unerring
maladroitness Pelgram had chosen the time of all others when his star was
burning with its feeblest flame. She continued to sit passively, while
the waves of the artist's eloquence rolled over her.

"I will not ask you if you love me--it is enough to tell you that I love
you more than all the world. But can you not give me one single word of
hope?"

He paused expectantly.

Helen hesitated. Still persisted the naughty longing to break forth and
say her will, but she knew it would be wrong. After all, there had been
in Pelgram's plea as much genuine sincerity as there could be in anything
of his, and she felt that her wish to be utterly candid was a childish
and unworthy one.

"Mr. Pelgram," she said at length, "if I should give you any hope, it
would be unjust and unkind to you, for I feel that I could never care for
you in the way you wish me to. I respect your ability, but that is not
enough. Please do not speak of this again. You are an artist, and there
ought to be for you enough in the world to keep you happy--eve