"There is. She's a patron of art." "Wow!" "Yes. She's going to patronize you." "Not if I see her first. How do _I_ qualify as a subject?" "She considered you a wasted life." "Where does she get that idea?" The Bonnie Lassie removed a small, sharp implement from the left eye of a stoical figurine and pointed it at herself. "Do you think that's fair?" demanded the indignant youth. The Bonnie Lassie reversed the implement and pointed it at him. "Do you or do you not," she challenged, "invade our humble precincts in a five-thousand-dollar automobile?" "It's my only extravagance." "Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy Park, when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honest working-man?" "Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won't stand for that!" he expostulated. "You know perfectly well I keep my room here because it's the only place I can work in quietly--" "And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if you left him entirely," supplemented the sculptress. Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. "Did you tell all this stuff to Miss Holland?" he asked. "Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barely sufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planning to help you realize your destiny." "Which is?" he queried with lifted brows. "To be a great painter." The other winced. "As you know, I've meant all along, as soon as I've saved enough--" "Oh, yes; _I_ know," broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can be quite ruthless where Art is concerned, "and _you_ know; but time flies and hell is paved with good intentions, and if you want to be that kind of a pavement artist--well, I think Peter Quick Banta is a better." "Do you suppose she'd let me paint her?" he asked abruptly. If statuettes could blink, the one upon which the Bonnie Lassie was busied would certainly have shrouded its vision against the dazzling radiance of her smile, for this was coming about as she had planned it from the moment when she had caught the flash of startled surprise and wonder in his eyes, as they first rested on Bobbie Holland. Here, she had guessed, might be the agency to bring Julien Tenney to his artistic senses; and even so it was now working out. But all she said was--and she said it with a sort of venomous blandness--"My dear boy, you can't paint." "Can't I! Just because I'm a little out of practice--" "Two years, isn't it, since you've touched a palette?" "Give me a chance at such a model as she is! That's all I ask." "Do you think her so pretty?" inquired the sculptress disparagingly. "Pretty? She's the loveliest thing that--" Catching his hostess's smile he broke off. "You'll admit it's a well-modeled face," he said professionally; "and--and--well, unusual."