"Oh, I want to come in and see you do all that," she exclaimed, with vivacity. "It didn't occur to me till after you'd shut the door, or I'd have asked to come in with you. I have the greatest curiosity about all these matters. Oh, it is all done? That's too bad! But you can make another one—and that I can see from the beginning. You know, I'm something of an artist myself; I've taken lessons for years—and this all interests me so much! No, Lieutenant!"—she called out from where she was standing just inside the open door, at sound of her companion's rising—"you stay where you are! There's going to be another, and it's such trouble to get you posed properly. Try and keep exactly as you were!" Thus it happened that she stood very close to Marsena, as he took out another plate, flooded it with the sweet-smelling, pungent collodion, and, with furtive precautions against the light, lowered it down into the silver bath. Then he had to shut the door, and she was still there just beside him. He heard himself pretending to explain the processes of the films to her, but his mind was concentrated instead upon a suggestion of perfume which she had brought into the reeking little cupboard of a room, and which mingled languorously with the scents of ether and creosote in the air. He had known her by sight for but a couple of months; he had been introduced to her only a week or so ago, and that in the most casual way; yet, strange enough, he could feel his hand trembling as it perfunctorily moved the plate dipper up and down in the bath. A gentle voice fell upon the darkness. "Do you know, Mr. Pulford," it murmured, "I felt sure that you were an artist, the very first time I saw you." Marsena heaved a long sigh—a sigh with a tremulous catch in it, as where sorrow and sweet solace should meet. "I did start out to be one," he answered, "but I—I never amounted to anything at it. I tried for years, but I wasn't any good. I had to give it up—at last—and take to this instead." He lifted the plate with caution, bent to look obliquely across its surface, and lowered it again. Then all at once he turned abruptly and faced her. They were so close to each other that even in the obscure gloom she caught the sudden flash of resolution in his eyes. "I'll tell you what I never told any other living soul," he said, beginning with husky eagerness, but lapsing now into grave deliberation of emphasis: "I hate—this—like pizen!"