“I know what you mean,” he said at last. “Other women have thought as you, but when one has been gliding downward for a time one ceases to care about where to stop, as you call it.” Stepping down from the wall, he went towards her and took her hand: “Jenny, you will stop now, will you not?” She rose, smiling: “For the present, anyway. I think I am cured for a long time of that sort of thing.” She shook his hand firmly: “Good-night; I’ll sit for you in the morning,” she said, going down the stairs. “All right, thanks.” He remained on the roof for some time smoking, shivering a little, and thinking, before going down to his room. IX Next day she sat to him after lunch until it grew dark; in the rests, they exchanged some insignificant words while he went on painting the background or washed his brushes. “There,” he said, putting down the palette and tidying up his paint-box. “That will do for today.” She came to look at the picture. “The black is good, don’t you think?” “Yes,” she said. “I think it is very effective.” He looked at his watch: “It is almost time to go out and get something to eat—shall we dine together?” “All right. Will you wait for me while I put on my things?” A moment later when he knocked at her door she was ready, standing before the glass to fasten her hat. How good looking she was, he thought, when she turned round. Slim and fair in her tight-fitting steel-grey dress, she looked very ladylike—discreet, cold, and stylish. What he had thought of her yesterday seemed quite impossible today. “Did you not promise to go to Miss Schulin this afternoon to see her paintings?” “Yes, but I am not going.” She blushed. “Honestly I don’t care to encourage an acquaintance with her, and I suppose there is not much in her paintings either.” “I should not think so. I cannot understand your putting up with her advances last night. Personally, I would rather do anything—eat a plateful of live worms.” Jenny smiled, and said seriously: “Poor thing, I daresay she is not happy at all.” “Pooh! not happy. I met her in Paris in 1905. I don’t think she is perverse by nature—only stupid and full of vanity. It was all put on. If it were the fashion now to be virtuous she would sit up darning children’s stockings, and would have been the best of housewives. Possibly painting roses with dewdrops on as a recreation. But once she got away from her moorings she wanted to see life—free as an artist, she thought she ought to get herself a lover for the sake of her self-respect. But unfortunately she got hold of a duffer who was old-fashioned enough to want her to marry him in the old non-modern way when things had gone wrong, and expected her to look after the child and the house.” “It may be Paulsen’s fault that she ran away—you never know.” “Of course it was his fault. He was of the old school, wanting happiness in his home, and he gave her probably too little love and still less cudgelling.” Jenny smiled sadly: