ust
once more, it will be about the end of her usefulness to me, and I'd do
it just for the fun of making another study of an interesting type,
something to stick among the unframed things piled up against the wall
and show people, after this one's sold."

He moved off to get a cigarette from the small square stool on which he
keeps brushes and tubes, leaving me to stare in great desolation at the
picture of Frances and her baby. So he's going to sell it! Indeed, the
more I looked at it the better I realized that it was the woman herself,
described by a master. He had naturally seen things I had not noticed,
that was all. I think I've never had a great desire for money, but the
idea was very irksome that her portrait would be sold and that it would
hang on some rich man's wall, stared at only by people merely concerned
with the beauty their dollars had bought.

It is, perhaps, just as well that I have some sense of humor. The idea
of this wonderful thing hanging in my rather dingy room suddenly struck
me as rather incongruous. As well think of a necklace of brilliants
about some ragged pauper's neck. To the best of my belief I have never
envied the people who can afford to possess the gauds I have sometimes
admired in the windows of shops, in which only the rich can ever deal.
Why this sudden obsession of a desire to have that picture of the young
woman where I could look at it, daily, and delight in its perfection? I
have often thought that in my den or in her own room she is as nearly
out of place as her picture would be. She impresses one as being able to
lend further grace to the most splendid dwelling-place.

Once more I catch myself communing with my folly. After all, Madame
Dupont is just a woman; her smile gives charm to her surroundings. When
she sits in my old Morris chair, she converts it into the throne of
beautiful motherhood and the place into a palace of grace. Why should I
care for daubs, for splashes of paint never so cleverly put on, since I
can see the model from time to time and rejoice that she counts me among
her friends?

"You're the grumpiest old curmudgeon I ever knew," said Gordon,
interrupting my cogitations. "You haven't said a word for ten minutes.
And so you like it, do you?"

"You've never done anything half so good," I affirmed.

"To tell you the truth, I've a notion I've happened to do something
pretty big," he said, nodding. "But a fellow's apt to get hypnotized by
his own work,