"You see!" she said, accusing herself discontentedly; "you don't dare look human. Why? Because you've had it so drummed into you that you can never, never again do anything natural. Why? Oh, because they all begin to talk about mysterious dangers when you say you wish to be natural.... I've made up my mind to look interested the next time he turns.... Why shouldn't he see that I'm quite willing to talk to him?... And I'm so tired of looking out of the window.... Before I came to this curious city I was never afraid to speak to anybody who attracted me.... And I'm not now.... So if he does look at me----" He did. The faintest glimmer of a smile troubled her lips. She thought: "I _do_ wish he'd speak!" There was a very becoming color in his face, partly because he was experienced enough not to mistake her; partly from a sudden and complete realization of her beauty. "It's so odd," thought Aphrodite, "that attractive people consider it dangerous to speak to one another. I don't see any danger.... I wonder what he has in that square box beside him? It can't be a camera.... It _can't_ be a folding easel! It simply _can't_ be that _he_ is an artist! a man like that----" "_Are_ you?" she asked quite involuntarily. "What?" he replied, astonished, wheeling around. "An--an artist. I can't believe it, and I don't wish to! You don't look it, you know!" For a moment he could scarcely realize that she had spoken; his keen gaze dissected the face before him, the unembarrassed eyes, the oval contour, the smooth, flawless loveliness of a child. "Yes, I am an artist," he said, considering her curiously. "I am sorry," she said, "no, not sorry--only unpleasantly surprised. You see I am so tired of art--and I thought you looked so--so wholesome----" He began to laugh--a modulated laugh--rather infectious, too, for Aphrodite bit her lip, then smiled, not exactly understanding it all. "Why do you laugh?" she asked, still smiling. "Have I said something I should not have said?" But he replied with a question: "Have you found art unwholesome?" "I--I don't know," she answered with a little sigh; "I am so tired of it all. Don't let us talk about it--will you?" "It isn't often I talk about it," he said, laughing again. "Oh! That is unusual. Why don't you talk about art?" "I'm much too busy." "D--doing what? If that is not _very_ impertinent." "Oh, making pictures of things," he said, intensely amused. "Pictures? You don't talk about art, and you paint pictures!" "Yes." "W--what kind? Do you mind my asking? You are so--so very unusual." "Well, to earn my living, I make full-page pictures for magazines; to satisfy an absurd desire, I paint people--things--anything that might satisfy my color senses." He shrugged his shoulders gaily. "You see, I'm the sort you are so tired of----"