her mind so at variance with itself, she was really
acting on the simple instinct of compassion.

She had run upstairs from Mr. Stone's room, and now walked fast, lest
that instinct, the most physical, perhaps, of all--awakened by sights
and sounds, and requiring constant nourishment--should lose its force.

Rapidly, then, she made her way to the grey street in Bayswater where
Cecilia had told her that the girl now lived.

The tall, gaunt landlady admitted her.

"Have you a Miss Barton lodging here?" Bianca asked.

"Yes," said the landlady, "but I think she's out."

She looked into the little model's room.

"Yes," she said; "she's out; but if you'd like to leave a note you
could write in here. If you're looking for a model, she wants work, I
believe."

That modern faculty of pressing on an aching nerve was assuredly not
lacking to Bianca. To enter the girl's room was jabbing at the nerve
indeed.

She looked round her. The mental vacuity of that little room! There
was not one single thing--with the exception of a torn copy of
Tit-Bits--which suggested that a mind of any sort lived there. For all
that, perhaps because of that, it was neat enough.

"Yes," said the landlady, "she keeps her room tidy. Of course, she's a
country girl--comes from down my way." She said this with a dry twist of
her grim, but not unkindly, features. "If it weren't for that," she went
on, "I don't think I should care to let to one of her profession."

Her hungry eyes, gazing at Bianca, had in them the aspirations of all
Nonconformity.

Bianca pencilled on her card:

"If you can come to my father to-day or tomorrow, please do."

"Will you give her this, please? It will be quite enough."

"I'll give it her," the landlady said; "she'll be glad of it, I daresay.
I see her sitting here. Girls like that, if they've got nothing to
do--see, she's been moping on her bed...."

The impress of a form was, indeed, clearly visible on the red and yellow
tasselled tapestry of the bed.

Bianca cast a look at it.

"Thank you," she said; "good day."

With the jabbed nerve aching badly she came slowly homewards.

Before the garden gate the little model herself was gazing at the house,
as if she had been there some time. Approaching from across the road,
Bianca had an admirable view of that young figure, now very trim and
neat, yet with something in its lines--more supple, perhaps, but less
refined--which proclaimed her not a lady; a somethi