'Kind of me to come! You must think badly of me if you think I could have stayed away. ... But now tell me, Ralph, what is the matter, what does the doctor say? Have you had the best medical advice, are you in want of anything? Can I do anything? Pray, don't hesitate. You know that I was, that I am, very fond of you, that I would do anything. You have been ill a long while now--what is the matter?' 'Thank you, dear. Things must take their course. What that course is it is impossible to say. I've had excellent medical advice and Ellen takes care of me.' 'But what is your illness? Nellie Brand told me that you caught a bad cold about a month ago. Perhaps a specialist---' 'Yes, I had a bad attack of influenza about a month or six weeks ago and I hadn't strength, the doctor said, to recover from it. I have been in bad health for some time. I've been disappointed. My painting hasn't gone very well lately. That was a disappointment. Disappointment, I think, is as often the cause of a man's death as anything else. The doctors give it a name: influenza, or paralysis of the brain, failure of the heart's action, but these are the superficial causes of death. There is often a deeper reason: one which medical science is unable to take into account.' 'Oh, Ralph, you mean me. Don't say that I am the cause. It was not my fault. If I broke my engagement it was because I knew I could not have made you happy. There's no reason to be jealous, it wasn't for any other man. There never will be another man. I was really very fond of you. ... It wasn't my fault.' 'No, dear, it wasn't your fault. It wasn't any one's fault, it was the fault of luck.' Mildred longed for tears, but her eyes remained dry, and they wandered round the studio examining and wondering at the various canvases. A woman who had just left her bath passed her arms into the sleeves of a long white wrapper. There was something peculiarly attractive in the picture. The picture said something that had not been said before, and Mildred admired its naturalness. But she was still more interested in the fact that the picture had been painted from the woman who had opened the door to her. 'She sits for the figure and attends on him when he is ill, she must be his mistress. Since when I wonder?' 'How do you like it?' he asked. 'Very much. It is beautifully drawn, so natural and so original. How did you think of that movement? That is just how a woman passes her arms into her wrapper when she get out of her bath. How did you think of it?' 'I don't know. She took the pose. I think the movement is all right.' 'Yes; it is a movement that happens every morning, yet no one thought of it before. How did you think of it?' 'I don't know, I asked her to take some poses and it came like that. I think it is good. I'm glad you like it.' 'It is very different from the stupid things we draw in the studio.'