st, is not so often "I don't want him," as "It would
grieve my first lover, therefore I will not take him."

A man, when offered a second mistress, usually thinks "I will take
her, but I mustn't let the first one know." In both it is the anxiety
of Nature that neither should be left mateless, part of her tremendous
scheme of insurance against mischance.

And all this great love and passion which I had for Viola, passion
which exhausted me almost to the point sometimes of being unable to
work, did not seal my senses against the beauty of Veronica--beauty I
painted daily in the studio.

I used to enjoy the afternoon spent there now with a different
pleasure from that of work merely. The sensuous attraction had become
very great, and I was beginning to feel it was not innocent and to
half-long for, half-dread an interruption, something to break through
it, end it.

Veronica professed to have fallen in love with me. It is rather a
trick of models to do this. They think it can do no harm, and possibly
extra benefits to themselves may accrue. Perhaps she was in love with
me, if a mere covetousness of the senses can be called love. This she
had, and from the first she had determined to subdue me. Her ruse of
the first day had succeeded. Viola had never again come to the studio
while she was there, and so hour after hour we were alone together
undisturbed. I kept hard at work the whole time, hardly exchanging a
word with her, and would go downstairs for tea with Viola; but she
employed her eyes continually to tell her story, and caught my hand
and kissed it whenever she was able.

Just at first I felt only amusement and annoyance. Then gradually I
used to expect the soft look to come into the beautiful eyes, the
touch of the warm lips on my hand began to stir and thrill me. I felt
a vague dislike and distrust of the girl mentally, I thought she was
vain, selfish, mercenary, revengeful, and bad-tempered, but with all
that Nature had nothing to do. Her servants, the senses, submitted to
the youth and beauty of the newcomer, and that was all Nature cared
about.

One afternoon she was posing as usual, and I was painting, deeply
absorbed, on the picture of the "Bacchante" when her voice suddenly
disturbed me.

"May I move just for a minute?"

"Certainly," I exclaimed, looking up and laying down my brush.

The girl laid down her spray of ivy-leaves, walked across the space
intervening between us, and, before I was aware o