The first thing Gethryn did on reaching home was to write a note to his friend, the Prefect of the Seine, telling him how the child of Rigaud came by the gold pieces. Then he had a quiet smoke, and then he went out and lunched at the Café des Écoles, frugally, on a sandwich and a glass of beer. After that he returned to his studio and sat down to his desk again. He opened a small memorandum book and examined some columns of figures. They were rather straggling, not very well kept, but they served to convince him that his accounts were forty francs behind, and he would have to economize a little for the next week or two. After this, he sat and thought steadily. Finally he took a sheet of his best cream laid note paper, dipped his pen in the ink, and began to write. The note was short, but it took him a long while to compose it, and when it was sealed and directed to “Miss Ruth Deane, Lung’ Arno Guicciardini, Florence, Italy,” he sat holding it in his hand as if he did not know what to do with it. Two o’clock struck. He started up, and quickly rolling up the shades from the glass roof and pulling out his easel, began to squeeze tube after tube of color upon his palette. The parrot came down and tiptoed about the floor, peering into color boxes, pastel cases, and pots of black soap, with all the curiosity of a regulation studio bore. Steps echoed on the tiles outside. Gethryn opened the door quickly. “Ah, Elise! Bon jour!” he said, pleasantly. “Entrez donc!” “Merci, Monsieur Gethryn,” smiled his visitor, a tall, well-shaped girl with dark eyes and red cheeks. “Ten minutes late,” Elise, said Gethryn, laughing, “my time’s worth a franc a minute; so prepare to pay up.” “Very well,” retorted the girl, also laughing and showing her pretty teeth, “but I have decided to charge twenty francs an hour from today. Now, what do you owe me, Monsieur?” Gethryn shook his brushes at her. “You are spoiled, Elise—you used to pose very well and were never late.” “And I pose well now!” she cried, her professional pride piqued. “Monsieur Bonnat and Monsieur Constant have praised me all this week. Voila,” she finished, throwing off her waist and letting her skirts fall in a circle to her feet. “Oh, you can pose if you will,” answered Gethryn, pleasantly. “Come, we begin?” The girl stepped daintily out of the pile of discarded clothes, and picking her way across the room with her bare feet, sprang lightly upon the model stand. “The same as last week?” she asked, smiling frankly. “Yes, that’s it,” he replied, shifting his easel and glancing up at the light; “only drop the left elbow a bit—there, that’s it; now a little to the left—the knee—that will do.” The girl settled herself into the pose, glanced at the clock, and then turning to Gethryn said, “And I am to look at you, am I not?” “Where could you find a more charming object?” murmured he, sorting his brushes. “Thank you,” she pouted, stealing a glance at him; “than you?”