He was a young fellow, scarcely of middle height, frail in figure, hollow-chested, and with a gentle face and soft, deeply set dark eyes. That he worked hard and lived barely it was easy enough to discover. Part of each day he spent in the various art galleries, and after his return from these visits he was seen no more until the following morning. "Until the last ray of light disappears he is at his easel," said a young student whom a gay escapade had temporarily banished to the fifth floor. "I hear him move now and then and cough. He has a villainous cough." "He is one of the enthusiasts," said another. "One can read it in his face. What fools they are--these enthusiasts! They throw away life that a crown of laurel may be laid upon their coffins." In the summer some of them managed to leave Paris, and the rest had enough to do to organize their little excursions and make the best of the sunshine, shade and warmth. But when those who had been away returned and all settled down for the winter, they found the "American" as they called him, in his old place. He had not been away at all; he had worked as hard as ever through midsummer heat and autumn rain; he was frailer in figure, his clothes were more worn, his face was thinner and his eyes far too hollow and bright, but he did not look either discouraged or unhappy. "How does he live?" exclaimed the _concierge_ dramatically. "The good God knows! He eats nothing, he has no fire, he wears the clothing of midsummer--he paints--he paints--he paints! Perhaps that is enough for him. It would not be for me." At this time--just as the winter entered with bleak winds and rains and falls of powdery snow--there presented herself among them an arrival whose appearance created a sensation. One night on his way up-stairs, the American found himself confronted on the fourth floor by a flood of light streaming through the open door of a before unoccupied room. It was a small room, meagerly furnished, but there was a fire in it and half a dozen people who laughed and talked at the top of their voices. Five of them were men he had seen before,--artists who lived in the house,--but the sixth was a woman whom he had never seen and whose marvellous beauty held him spell-bound where he stood. She was a woman of twenty-two or three, with an oval face whose fairness was the fairness of ivory. She was dark-eyed and low-browed, and as she leaned forward upon the table and looked up at the man who spoke to her, even the bright glow of the lamp, which burned directly before her face, showed no flaw in either tint or outline. "Why should we ask the reason of your return?" said the man. "Let us rejoice that you are here." "I will tell you the reason," she answered, without lowering her eyes. "I was tired." "A good reason," was the reply. She pushed her chair back and stood upright; her hands hung at her side; the men were all looking at her; she smiled down at them with fine irony.