A light footfall sounded near at hand, a rustling of silk, the click of a latch. A girl stood in the partly opened side door—a young girl, hardly more than fifteen or sixteen, dressed in Moorish costume. She stood an instant hesitating, with her back partly turned to me, looking about the room. Then, leaving the door open behind her, she picked up a lute that was standing against the wall—I had net noticed before that it was there—and crossed the room toward the fireplace. The girl crossed the room slowly; her back was still partly turned as she passed me. It took her but a moment to reach the fireplace, yet in that moment I had a vague but unmistakable feeling of being in the presence of an overpowering physical exhaustion. Her shoulders seemed to droop; she trailed the lute in her loose fingers over the heavy nap of the carpet; there was about her white figure as she walked a slackness of muscle, a limpness, a seeming absence of energy that was almost uncanny. She reached the fireplace and sank on a hassock, holding the lute across her knees, her eyes staring away into the distance behind me. It was as though without conscious thought she had dropped into a model’s pose. I must have stepped forward into plainer view, or made some slight noise, for the girl’s gaze abruptly shifted downward and met mine full. “Oh, _señor_, I—” She showed no fear. She did not start to her feet, but sat quiet, as though in sudden bewilderment—yet with a mind too utterly exhausted to think clearly. “Oh, _señor_, I did not know. I thought only the _maestro_ would be here, I came to pose for him. It is the hour.” I tried to speak quietly. “He will be here in a moment,” I said. “I have been looking at your—your portrait.” The girl did not smile, as I think I hoped she would, but stared at me apathetically. I held her glance a moment; then it wandered vaguely to the easel as though her thoughts were still groping with the import of my words. In the shop down-stairs I could hear footsteps on the board flooring. After a moment I stepped forward out of the window recess, and, drawing up a chair, sat down beside the girl. She dropped her gaze to mine without emotion. I could see her face had once been beautiful. From this close view-point I could see, too, that her lips were pale with an almost bluish paleness. Her cheeks were very white—a whiteness that was not a pallor, but seemingly more an absence of red. And then I got the vague, absurd impression that I could see into her skin—as though it contained nothing to render it opaque. “Do you pose for the _maestro_ every night?” I asked. My tone held that gentle solicitude with which one might address a child who was very ill. “_Sí, señor_; every night at this hour.” Her manner was utterly impersonal; her eyes still held that listless, apathetic stare. I gazed into them steadily: and then, far down in their depths, I seemed to see lurking a shadowy look of appeal.