At the studio door, when Fairfax left her, she said, taking up the self-same gold purse that he had restored to her in the Louvre seven months ago-- "I hope that I have enough money to pay for this treasure, Mr. Rainsford. It's so beautiful that it must be very dear. What is the price?" And Fairfax, hot all over, warm indeed for the first time in long, stammered-- "Don't speak of price--of course, I don't know you well enough, but if you really like it, please take it." "Take it!" Mrs. Faversham had cried, "but I mean to--I adore it. Mr. Cedersholm will tell you how valuable it is, but I must pay you for it, my dear Mr. Rainsford." Holding the carriage door open, his fine face on fire and his blue eyes illumined, he had insisted, and Antony's voice, his personality, his outstretched hand bare, cold, shapely, charmed her and impressed her, and he saw her slowly, unwillingly accept his sudden gift. He had seen her embarrassed suddenly, as he was. Then she had driven away in her carriage, to be lost in the mists with other people who did not matter to him, and poor as he had started out, poorer, for he had not the statuette, he limped down the stairs again and into the street to forage for them both. He thought whimsically: "I must feed up the whole dramatis personae of old Bob's play, for he can't get on until he's fed up the cast!" He limped along the Rue du Bac, his cold hands in his pockets, his head a little bent. But no battle with life now, be it what it would, could compare with his battle in New York. Now, indeed, though he was cold and hungry and tired, he was the inhabitant of a city that he loved, he was working alone for the art he adored. He believed in himself--not once had he yet come to the period of artistic despair. During these seven months the little personal work he had been able to do had only whetted his desire; he was young, possessed of great talent and of brilliant imagination, and he was happy and hopeful and determined; the physical wants did not weigh on his spirit nor did the long period of labour injure his power of production. He chafed, indeed, but he felt his strength even as he pulled against the material things from which he had to free himself. And as Fairfax, part of the throng, walked aimlessly up the Rue du Bac with his problems, he walked less alone that night than ever in his life, for he was absorbed in the thought of the woman.