And when she sought him out in his studio she had found it to be such a poor mean room over a stable, in a mean street among a maze of mean streets, and yet had thought it heaven. It was so like him, so bare and yet wonderful—a lovely spiritual mood set over against tawdry materials and surroundings. “_Drive me through the East Side, Fred._” Better, she had found him painting or perhaps merely pretending to. He had on that old long gray linen duster which later became so familiar a thing to her. And to one side of him and his easel on a table were some of the colors of his palette, greens and purples and browns and blues. He had said so softly as he opened the door to her: “My painting is all bluffing to-day. I haven’t been able to think of anything but you, how you might not come, how you would look—” And then, without further introduction or explanation, under the north light of his roof window filtering down dustily upon them, he had put his arms about her and she her lips to his, and they had clung together, thinking only of each other, their joy and their love. And he had sighed, a tired sigh, or one of great relief after a strain, such a strain as she herself had been under. _That one little cloud in the sky!_ And then after a time, he had shown her the picture he was painting, a green lush sea-marsh with a ribbon of dark enamel-like water laving the mucky strand, and overhead heavy, sombre, smoky clouds, those of a sultry summer day over a marsh. And in the distance, along the horizon, a fringe of trees showing as a filigree. But what a mood! Now it hung in the Wakefield Gallery—and— (Harry had helped to place it there for her!) But then he had said, putting his brushes aside: “But what is the use of trying to paint now that you are here?” And she had sighed for joy, so wonderful was it all. _The crowds in these East Side streets!_ Yet what had impressed her most was that he made no apology for the bareness and cheapness of his surroundings. Outside were swarming push carts and crowds, the babble of the great foreign section, but it was all as though he did not hear. Over a rack at the back of the large bare room he had hung a strip of faded burnt orange silk and another of clear light green, which vivified what otherwise would have been dusty and gray. Behind this, as she later discovered, were his culinary and sleeping worlds. And then, of course, had come other days. _But how like that first day was this one, so fresh and bright!_