The girl got up from the sofa behind him, went to the model-stand, and mounted it. For a few moments she was busy adjusting her feet to the chalk marks and blocks. Finally she took the pose. She always seemed inclined to be more or less vocal while Drene worked; her voice, if untrained, was untroubled. Her singing had never bothered Drene, nor, until the last few days, had he even particularly noticed her blithe trilling--as a man a field, preoccupied, is scarcely aware of the wild birds’ gay irrelevancy along the way. He happened to notice it now, and a thought passed through his mind that the country must be very lovely in the mild spring sunshine. As he worked, the brief visualization of young grass and the faint blue of skies, evoked, perhaps, by the girl’s careless singing, made for his dull concentration subtly pleasant environment. “May I rest?” she asked at length. “Certainly, if it’s necessary.” “I’ve brought my lunch. It’s twelve,” she explained. He glanced at her absently, rolling a morsel of wax; then, with slight irritation which ended in a shrug, he motioned her to descend. After all, girls, like birds, were eternally eating. Except for that, and incessant preening, existence meant nothing more important to either species. He had been busy for a few moments with the group when she said something to him, and he looked around from his abstraction. She was holding out toward him a chicken sandwich. When his mind came back from wool gathering, he curtly declined the offer, and, as an afterthought, bestowed upon her a wholly mechanical smile, in recognition of a generosity not welcome. “Why don’t you ever eat luncheon?” she asked. “Why should I?” he replied, preoccupied. “It’s bad for you not to. Besides, you are growing thin.” “Is that your final conclusion concerning me, Cecile?” he asked, absently. “Won’t you please take this sandwich?” Her outstretched arm more than what she said arrested his drifting attention again. “Why the devil do you want me to eat?” he inquired, fishing out his empty pipe and filling it. “You smoke too much. It’s bad for you. It will do very queer things to the lining of your stomach if you smoke your luncheon instead of eating it.” He yawned. “Is that so?” he said. “Certainly it’s so. Please take this sandwich.” He stood looking at the outstretched arm, thinking of other things and the girl sprang to her feet, caught his hand, opened the fingers, placed the sandwich on the palm, then, with a short laugh as though slightly disconcerted by her own audacity, she snatched the pipe from his left hand and tossed it upon the table. When she had reseated herself on the lounge beside her pasteboard box of luncheon, she became even more uncertain concerning the result of what she had done, and began to view with rising alarm the steady gray eyes that were so silently inspecting her.