The wide, sweet, leaf-strewn alleys were very nearly deserted where they stood, for the day had grown colder and the winter sunlight left early to give place to a long still winter evening. Their footsteps made no sound on the brown carpet of the park. Antony had not stopped to ask what kind of a woman the girl student was when he spontaneously left his lonely seat in the restaurant to take his place at her side, but everything she said to him revealed a frank, innocent mind. He saw that she had come with him without thinking twice, and he should have been touched by it. He drew her arm within his as they passed the great fountain. The basin was empty and its curve as round and smooth as human lips. "Now," he said, "the time has come to talk of you and what you want to do and can do, and how you can do it." "That's awfully kind." "No, those are just the questions that I have to ask myself every day and find on some days that I haven't got the answer. It's a riddle, you know. We don't every day quite find the answer to it. I reckon we would never go on if we did, but it's good sport to ask and try to find out, and, believe me, Miss Nora Scarlet, two are better than one at a riddle, aren't they?" "Oh, very much." They went along leisurely and after a second she continued: "It's lonely in Paris for a girl who doesn't want to go in for lots of things, and I have been getting muddled. But the worst muddle is pounds, shillings and pence"--she laughed musically--"it's reduced to pence at last, but I don't find the muddle reduced a bit." "You want to do portraits?" he asked. "Yes, I haven't an idea about anything else." The trees above their heads made leafy bowers in summer, but now between the fine bare branches, they saw the delicate wintry sky, pale with the fading light of what had been a rare January day. "Suppose I get an order for you to paint a portrait and you are paid in advance." She stopped, holding him back by the arm, and exclaimed, joyously-- "Oh, but you could not!" "Suppose that I can. If I do succeed and you paint the portrait, will you do something for me?" She looked up at him quickly. He was much above her. Nora Scarlet had seen Fairfax several times a week for many months. She knew him as well as any person can know another by sight--she knew his clothes, the way he wore them. It had been easy to study his face attentively, for he was so absorbed in general that he was unconscious of scrutiny. She had learned every one of his features pretty well by heart. Solitary as she was, without companions or friends except for her studio mates, she had grown to think as women do of a man they choose, to surround him with fancies and images. She had idealized this unknown artist, and her thoughts kept her company, and he had become almost part of her life already. She looked up at him now and blushed. He put his hand down over hers lightly.