n the sill, cheeks in her
hands, listlessly watching the flight of the sparrows.

The little creatures were nest-building; from moment to moment a bird
fluttered up towards the eaves, bearing with it a bit of straw, a
feather sometimes, sometimes a twisted end of string.

"It's spring-fever," he yawned, passing one hand over his eyes. "I feel
like rolling on the grass--there's a puppy in that yard doing it now--"

He washed a badger brush and dried it. Perfume from the wistaria filled
his throat and lungs; his very breath, exhaling, seemed sweetened with
the scent.

"There's that girl across the way," he said, aloud, as though making the
discovery for the first time.

Sunshine now lay in dazzling white patches across his drawing. He
blinked, washed another brush, and leaned back in his chair again,
looking across at his neighbor. Youth is in itself attractive; and she
was young--a white-skinned, dark-eyed girl, a trifle colorless, perhaps,
like a healthy plant needing the sun.

"They grow like that in this town," he reflected, drumming idly on the
table with his pencil. "Who is she? I've seen her there for months, and
I don't know."

The girl raised her dark eyes and gave him a serene stare.

"Oh yes," he muttered, "I see your eyes, but they tell me nothing about
you. You're all alike when you look at us out of the windows called
eyes. What's behind those eyes? Nobody knows. Nobody knows."

He dropped his hand on the table and began tracing arabesques with his
pencil-point. Then his capricious fancy blossomed into a sketch of his
neighbor--a rapid idealization, which first amused, then enthralled him.

And while his pencil flew he murmured lazily to himself: "You don't know
what I'm doing, do you? I wonder what you'd do if you did know?... Thank
you, ma belle, for sitting so still. Won't you smile a little? No?...
Who are you? What are you?--with your dimpled white hands framing your
face.... I had no idea you were half so lovely! ... or is it my fancy
and my pencil which endow you with qualities that you do not possess?...
There! you moved. Don't let it occur again."...

He passed a soft eraser over the sketch, dimming its outline; picked out
a brush and began in color, rambling on in easy, listless
self-communion: "I've asked you who you are and you haven't told me. Pas
chic, ca. There are thousands and thousands of dark-eyed little things
like you in this city. Did you ever see the streets when the shops