“We were becoming acquainted when you interrupted,” replied the woman. She turned a disconcerting gaze upon her hostess. “Where did you get him?” she demanded, exactly as if Cyrus weren't there. “Oh, please!” cried the girl. “Don't mind me,” said Cyrus politely, sensible that something was going on which he didn't grasp. “I'm used to it.” He turned to the mighty artist. “You see, in real life I'm a studio model.” “Are you?” retorted the genius. “I thought you were an engineer. Now I begin to suspect you are a fraud. Well, I have something to say to Miss Prim, here. Run you away and play with your job.” “So that's your young Lincoln,” she observed, as Cyrus moodily accepted his dismissal, and passed out. “He doesn't know it.” “You have missed even more than I thought, in him.” “I've done my best,” said the girl dispiritedly. “He's too big for little me.” “Hm! You haven't told me yet where you got him.” “'The wild wind blew him to my close-barred door,'” quoted the girl. “A good many wild winds have blown about Cyrus Staten from time to time.” “Who?” “Cyrus Staten; don't you _know_ him?” “No, I picked him up from the bench in Our Square.” “Which the Statens used to own, by the way. Well, the _facilis descensus_ of an idle waster from the world of white lights and black shadows to a park-bench is nothing new.” “Does he look like an idle waster?” “He does _not_. Therein lies a miracle. What is he doing now?” “Running the steam-roller, outside.” The face of the girl melted into lovely and irrepressible mirth. “Ah! That explains much. But not all. What is your part in this?” “You have seen it.” She nodded backward toward the studio. “Not that. As a woman? What have you been doing to that boy to make him what he is?” The girl took her soft lip grievously between her teeth for a moment before answering. “I've been playing my child's tricks with a real man--and now I'm being sorry.” “And paying for it?” The Bonnie Lassie's head drooped. “Is he paying for it, too?” “No.” “No? Well, when I played a little surprise on him and kissed him under the mistletoe, I thought that tall and massive youth was going to faint away like a school-miss in my supporting arms, until he saw who it was. What do you suppose his expectations--” “You had no right to take such an advantage,” flashed the girl, turning crimson. “So?” The great woman smiled. “But I think my own thoughts. When one pays, or the other pays, that is well. It is the chance of the play. But when both pay--oh, that is wrong, wrong, wrong as wrong can be!” “I can't help it,” said the girl, very low. “There is a previous debt.” And she turned aside a face so woe-begone that her interrogator forbore further pressure. “At least,” she said, “the artist must complete the work, at whatever cost to the woman. You will finish _that?_” She jerked her head toward the studio. “I--I suppose so. If I can.”