Jane, slipping out of her wrap, moved slowly and graciously about the little room, well and pleasantly aware of Michael's anxious eyes upon her. His wretched friend should have all the charm and cheer which he had begged for him, but he himself should sit hungry at the feast. She picked up a bold sketch in strong color and held it off with a very real exclamation of interest. "This is _good_, Mr. Randal! This thing of the old woman and pushcart! I like it a lot. And the bakeshop! It's good stuff, all of it. What are you doing with it?" "Nothing," said the young man, sullenly, his thin fingers beginning to pluck at his face. "I've just started again. I've been ... ill. I suppose Daragh's told you--about me?" "Yes," said Jane, easily, "he's told me everything, I think, but what I'm interested in now is--what are you going to do with this stuff?" "I don't know," he said, slackly. "It depends on how I feel. Some days"--his eyes shifted and fled before her gaze--"well, you know how it is yourself with your own work,--when you're in the mood--when you have an inspiration----" "I don't know anything about that sort of piffle," said his guest, severely. "It's my mood to beat my poet's piano four solid hours a day, and I shouldn't know an inspiration if I met one in my mush bowl!" He produced a nervous laugh. "Ah,--but you have your market! You're _there_! There's the urge--the spur----" She looked from the crisp and living lines of his pictures to his dead, young flesh, to his fingers, locked together and straining, to keep them from their telltale plucking. "Look here," she said, "why shouldn't we do something together?" "We--togeth--" he sat down limply on the end of his bed-couch, staring, and she heard Michael's quickened breath behind her. "Yes! Let's try a calendar of New York. I've always had one in the attic of my mind. Twelve pictures, you know, with bits of verse, of prose,--sketches like these of yours here. There are several which would do just as they stand. This sort of thing, you know, but balanced--Grand Street pushcarts and a group of girls going into Lucy-Gertrude's on Fifth Avenue." "I get you," he cried, jumping to his feet. "Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady----" "But no propaganda!" "No, no,--cut the Sob Sister stuff,--just the pattern of it all, the mosaic----" "Yes,--done objectively!" "Right! Gad,--that sounds like a corking idea! When can we start? Have you the text or--Good Lord--my eats!" He dashed to the noisy chafing-dish, a faint color creeping up into the unpleasant whiteness of his skin. "Everything's done! Where will you sit, Miss Vail? Give her this tray, will you, Daragh--_and_ the napkin, man! Can she reach the sandwiches? Oh, I'm forgetting my perfectly good salad! Well, how is it? I'm not much of a cheffonier, but----"