The building which housed the studio was in a small street or, more properly, an area-way in the vicinity of lower Fifth Avenue within a stone's throw of Washington Square. John Gailbraith said it was his favourite part of the city. It came to be mine. Sometimes, after we had taken luncheon at a near-by restaurant, we would stroll in the square or sit on one of the benches. Our lounging neighbours were interesting studies in real life. John would point out the various foreign types and compare them with their countrymen on their native heath. At other times I would have our recently acquired cook-lady prepare a dainty lunch basket, which I carried to the studio, and at the noon-hour, while John made the tea, I laid the table. Here we would linger, absorbed in the discussion which with passing days grew more frank and intimate. I no longer felt cramped or warped. Expansion had become an almost measurable sensation. During our vari-toned _pour-parler_, one subject was by seemingly tacit consent taboo. No reference or allusion was ever made to my conjugal affairs. Whatever John Gailbraith thought or knew concerning Will's peccadillos, he gave no intimation. It was not possible that he had not heard of my husband's various _liaisons_. In fact, Will, himself, made no attempt to conceal the attentions of certain women who rang up at his home under flimsiest pretence. He joked lightly about their indiscretions and commented on the fact that he "was getting to be the real thing in the way of a matinée idol." The period following upon my son's death when Will had devoted himself to me with something of the sweetness of our early married life was short-lived. And if I closed my eyes and ears to the recurring lapses of his fidelity it was because I still hoped that some day he would need my love. Whether John Gailbraith believed there was an understanding between my husband and me I could only surmise. To have him regard me in the light of a complaisant wife gave me many uncomfortable moments, yet I could not touch upon the subject. The truth lovingly told is that I came nearer to being happy during those summer months than I had been for--how many years had passed since Will and I had set up housekeeping in the little furnished flat of halcyon days?... When Will's absence from home became more frequent and of long duration I exerted myself to greet his return with a pleasant word and a serene face. And if, sometimes, I felt John's eyes upon me--those great gray eyes with large iris and the black fringed lids--I strove the harder to dissemble. Sometimes Will would swoop down on us with a noisy party in tow and insist upon an impromptu dinner in the workshop. The suggestion was invariably hailed with delight by the women, who regarded the studio as an open sesame to forbidden fruit and free speech, while to the men it connoted models in the nude and bacchanalia.