"There are few women," he went on, "whom I could make over as I have made her over. They have not the adaptability--the temperament. There was one whom I could have transformed. But I was not allowed. She was little and blonde and the wife of a clergyman; she looked like a saint---and she should have worn straight things of clear green or red, or blue. But she wore black. I've sometimes wondered if she was such a saint as she looked. There was a divorce afterward, I believe, and another man. And she died." Porter, listening idly, came back. "What type was she?" "Fra Angelico--to perfection. I should have liked to dress her." "Did you ever tell her that you wanted to do it?" "Yes. And she listened. It was then that I gained my impression--that she was not a saint. One night there was a little entertainment at the parish house and I had my way. I made of her an angel, in a red robe with a golden lyre--and I painted her afterward. She used to come to my studio, but I'm not sure that Poole liked it." "Poole?" Porter was tense. "Her husband. He could not make her happy." "Was she--the one in fault?" Colin shrugged. "There are always two stories. As I have said, she looked like a saint." "I should like to see--the picture." Porter tried to speak lightly. "May I come up some day to your rooms?" Colin's face beamed. "I'm getting into new quarters. I shall want your opinion--call me up before you come." It was Colin who went home with Delilah in Porter's car. Porter pleaded important business, and walked for an hour around the Speedway, his brain in a whirl. Then Mary knew--Mary _knew_--and it had made no difference in her thought of Roger Poole! CHAPTER XVIII _In Which Mary Writes of the Workaday World, and in Which Roger Writes of the Dreams of a Boy._ _In the Tower Rooms--June._ I have been working in the office for a week, and it has been the hardest week of my life. But please don't think that I have any regrets--it is only that the world has been so lovely outside, and that I have been shut in. I am beginning to understand that the woman in the home has a freedom which she doesn't sufficiently value. She can run down-town in the morning; or slip out in the afternoon, or put off until to-morrow something which should have been done to-day. But men can't run out or slip away or put off--no matter if the sun is shining, or the birds singing, or the wind calling, or the open road leading to adventure. Yet there are compensations, and I am trying to see them. I am trying to live up to my theories. And I am sustained by the thought that at last I am a wage-earner--independent of any one--capable of buying my own bread and butter, though all masculine help should fail!