As his eyes strayed from the palace, he glanced up a long vista between leafless trees and muddy grass-plats. A familiar figure in a battered straw hat and scanty green cloak was advancing in his direction; the wind, blowing back the fringe of disfiguring short hair, disclosed a pure unbroken line of delicate profile, strangely simple, and recalling the profiles in Botticelli's lovely fresco in the Louvre. Miss Price, for it was she, carried a painting-box, and under one arm a stretcher that gave her infinite trouble whenever the wind caught it. As she passed, the Painter half started up to join her, but she gave him such a cold nod that his intention was nipped in the bud. He felt snubbed, and sank back on his bench, taking a malicious pleasure in observing that, womanlike, she ploughed through all the deepest puddles in her path, making great splashes about the hem of her skirt, that fluttered out behind her as she walked, for her hands were filled, and she had no means of holding it up. The Painter resented his snubbing. He was used to the most humble deference from the art students of the quarter, who hung upon his slightest word, and were grateful for every stray crumb of his attention. He now lost what little interest he had previously taken in his surroundings. Just before him in a large open space reserved for the boys to play handball was a broken sheet of glistening water reflecting the blue sky, the trees rattled their branches about in the wind, and now and then a tardy leaf fluttered down from where it had clung desperately late into the winter. The gardens were almost deserted. It was too early for the throng of beribboned nurses and howling infants who usually haunt its benches. One or two pedestrians hurried across the garden, evidently taking the route to make shortcuts to their destinations, and not for the pleasure of lounging among its blustery attractions. After idling an hour on his bench, he went to breakfast with a friend who chanced to live conveniently near, and where he made himself very disagreeable by commenting unfavorably on the work in progress and painting in particular. Then he brushed himself up and started off for the rue Notre Dame des Champs, where Miss Snell's studio was situated. It was one of a number huddled together in an old and rather dilapidated building, and the porter at the entrance gave him minute directions as to its exact location, but after stumbling up three flights of dark stairs he had no trouble in finding it, for Miss Snell's name, preceded by a number of initials, shone out from a door directly in front of him as he reached the landing. He knocked, and for several minutes there was a wild scurrying within and a rattle and clash of crockery. Then Miss Snell appeared at the door, and exclaimed, in delighted surprise: "How _do_ you do? We had quite given you up."