During intervals when he leaned back to stretch his muscles and light a cigarette his eyes wandered towards a window just across the court, where sometimes a girl sat. She was there now, rocking in a dingy rocking-chair, stitching away by her open window. Once or twice she turned her head and glanced across at him. After an interval he laid his cigarette on the edge of a saucer and resumed his work. In the golden gloom of the studio the stillness was absolute, save for the delicate stir of a curtain rustling at his open window. A breeze moved the hair on his temples; his eyes wandered towards the window across the court. The window was so close that they could have conversed together had they known each other. In the court new grass was growing; grimy shrubbery had freshened into green; a tree was already in full leaf. Here and there cats sprawled on sun-warmed roofs, sparrows chirked under eaves from whence wisps of litter trailed, betraying hidden nests. Below his window, hanging in heavy twists, a wistaria twined, its long bunches of lilac-tinted blossoms alive with bees. His eyes followed the flight of a shabby sparrow. "If I were a bird," he said, aloud, "I'd not be idiot enough to live in a New York back yard." And he resumed his work, whistling. But the languor of spring was in his veins, and he bent forward again, sniffing the mild air. The witchery of spring had also drawn his neighbor to her window, where she leaned on the sill, cheeks in her hands, listlessly watching the flight of the sparrows. The little creatures were nest-building; from moment to moment a bird fluttered up towards the eaves, bearing with it a bit of straw, a feather sometimes, sometimes a twisted end of string. "It's spring-fever," he yawned, passing one hand over his eyes. "I feel like rolling on the grass--there's a puppy in that yard doing it now--" He washed a badger brush and dried it. Perfume from the wistaria filled his throat and lungs; his very breath, exhaling, seemed sweetened with the scent. "There's that girl across the way," he said, aloud, as though making the discovery for the first time. Sunshine now lay in dazzling white patches across his drawing. He blinked, washed another brush, and leaned back in his chair again, looking across at his neighbor. Youth is in itself attractive; and she was young--a white-skinned, dark-eyed girl, a trifle colorless, perhaps, like a healthy plant needing the sun. "They grow like that in this town," he reflected, drumming idly on the table with his pencil. "Who is she? I've seen her there for months, and I don't know." The girl raised her dark eyes and gave him a serene stare. "Oh yes," he muttered, "I see your eyes, but they tell me nothing about you. You're all alike when you look at us out of the windows called eyes. What's behind those eyes? Nobody knows. Nobody knows."