dies on their uppers. If you
want a check, I'll give it to you for her, not on her account, but
because you're the best, old, weak-minded idiot in this burg and I'm
glad to help you out, however silly your quixotic ideas may be. Wait a
minute, I'll write one out for you."

"No," I answered, "I've just sold two stories and got some advance
royalty on my novel. I'd come and ask you for money, if I needed it,
urgently. I might have to, some day. But this poor thing's worrying
herself to death and that's what I want to remedy at once, if possible.
A little occupation would give her something else to think about. If I
tell her that she will have to pose in silence, that it's a part of the
work she's engaged for, she won't say a word. She's an intelligent
woman."

"Why doesn't Frieda employ her?" he asked.

"Because she's no slender, ethereal sprite. Doesn't have anything of the
woodland nymph about her, that's why. Besides, Frieda's doing an Orion
with a covey of Pleiades scattering before him, at present."

"I have nothing for the Winter Academy, just now," said Gordon,
appearing to relent a little. "Strangely enough, Miss Van Rossum doesn't
care to have her portrait exhibited. If I really found a remarkable
type, I'd like to do a mother and child. If you really think this Mrs.
Dupont will keep still and is willing to earn a few weeks of bread and
cheese by the silence of her tongue and some ability to sit quietly in a
chair without getting the fidgets, I shouldn't mind trying her. But, of
course, she'd have to come up to specifications. I'll have to look at
her first. Have you spoken to her about it?"

"Not a word," I answered, "I didn't want to see her disappointed."

"Of course, it's a foolish thing to do," he said, "but you're so anxious
about it that I'll see whether it can be managed. She's just heard of
her husband's death, has she? Well, she won't be thinking of other men
for a while and won't expect to be made love to. Take up your hat, and
we'll go over to that nursery of yours. I'll look her over."

If I hadn't known him so well, I should have been provoked at his
speaking as if the woman had been some second-hand terrier I wanted to
dispose of. We took the elevator and were shot down to the ground
floor.

"Mind you," he warned me, "it's ten to one that I'll discover something
that will make this errand useless. The mere fact of a woman's having a
broken-down voice and a baby doesn't necessarily qualify