felt one as to the perambulator, but
discouraging in regard to the garment.

"Oh, never mind," said Frieda. "I'll make paint rags out of it, then. I
only thought I'd help out the shop. Now let us get David to give us a
cup of tea."

We were talking cheerfully together, when Gordon dropped in from the
skies, most unexpectedly. We were glad to see him and, since four people
in my room crowded it considerably, my friend took a seat on the bed. I
had first met him in the Bohemia of the Latin Quarter, when his necktie
out-floated all others and any one prophesying that he would become the
portrayer in ordinary to the unsubmerged would have been met with
incredulous stares. At that time, for him, Beranger was the only poet
and Murger the only writer. And now his clothes are built, while his
shoes are designed. Yet, in my top floor, he showed some of the old
Adam, joining gladly in our orgy of tea and wafers and utterly
forgetting all pose. I noticed that he looked a great deal at Frances,
but it was no impertinent stare. She was quite unconscious of his
scrutiny or, if at all aware of it, probably deemed it a continuation of
his method of artistic study. She had become accustomed to it in his
studio.

"David tells me that you are lost to me as a model," he said, suddenly,
with a sort of eagerness that showed a trace of disappointment.

"I must now plod along without interruption," she answered.

"I had thought of making another study. The finished thing is all right,
but one doesn't come across a face like yours very often."

"No," put in Frieda, "and it's a good thing for you that you've had the
exclusive painting of it. If she had continued as a model and been done
by every Tom, Dick and Harry----"

"True. Since I can't paint her again, I'm glad no one else will. No,
thank you, I won't have any more tea. How's the new picture, Frieda?"

For a few minutes the two monopolized the conversation. To some extent
they spoke a jargon of their own, to which Frances and I listened with
little understanding.

"And what do you think of it, Dave?" he asked, turning abruptly to me.

"It is a beautiful thing," I answered. "If I had Frieda's imagination
and her sense of beauty, I should be the great, undiscovered American
novelist. She makes one believe that the world is all roses and violets
and heliotropes, touched by sunshine and kissed by soft breezes. It is
tenanted only by sprites and godlings, according to her magic brush