He ate irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic of creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples, and grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid New York summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt, silent, darkly absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air until some half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a headache, set him in reluctant motion. He heard of Cecile now and then; Cosby had used her for a figure on a fountain destined to embellish the estate of a wealthy young man somewhere or other; Greer employed her for the central figure of Innocence in his lovely and springlike decoration for some Western public edifice. Quair had met her several times at Manhattan Beach with various and assorted wealthy young men. And one evening Guilder came alone to his studio and found him lying on the lounge, his lank, muscular hands, still clay-stained, hanging inert to the floor above an evening paper fallen there. “Hello, Guilder,” he said, without rising, as the big architect shambled loosely through the open doorway. “How are you, Drene?” “All right. It’s hot.” “There’s not a breath of air. It looks like a thunder-storm in the west.” He pulled up a chair and sprawled on it, wiping his grave features with a damp handkerchief. “Drene,” he said, “a philanthropic guy of sorts wants to add a chapel to the church at Shallow Brook, Long Island. We’ve pinched the job. Can you do an altar piece?” “What sort?” “They want a Virgin. It’s to be called the Chapel of the Annunciation. It’s for women to repair to--under certain and natural circumstances.” “I’ve so much on hand--” “It’s only a single figure-barring the dove. Why don’t you do it?” “There are plenty of other men--” “They want you. There’ll be no difficulty about terms.” Drene said with a shrug: “Terms are coming to mean less and less to me, Guilder. It costs very little for me to live.” He turned his gray, tired face. “Look at this barn of a place; and go in there and look at my bedroom. I have no use for what are known as necessities.” “Still, terms are terms--” “Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I’ve enough to live life out as I am living it here--between these empty walls--and that expanse of glass overhead. That’s about all life holds for me--a sheet of glass and four empty walls--and a fistfull of wet clay.” “Are you a trifle morbid, Drene?” “I’m not by any means; I merely prefer to live this way. I have sufficient means to live otherwise if I wish. But this is enough of the world to suit me, Guilder--and I can go to a noisy restaurant to eat in when I’m so inclined--” He laughed a rather mirthless laugh and glanced up, catching a peculiar expression in Guilder’s eyes.