“It’s all right,” she laughed. “I didn’t want to take up your time by correcting a perfectly reasonable mistake. And if you’d rather call me Chittenden, pray do! But my name is really Clarenden, with Mariellen in front. See!” She offered me another of her cards. Her face took on a look of charming gravity as we shook hands. “Whatever happens,” she said, “I know you will be very careful of the plaster cast. I know you understand my feeling about it.” The following April, Mariellen Clarenden wrote to me from Paris, to tell me that I might expect her in my studio about the middle of May. She had visited the Salon, she said, and had seen strange sights in the world of art. Also, she had worked hard on her French; luckily, she added, she had a good Missouri foundation. The closing sentence of her letter went to my head a little. “_Mon Dieu_,” she wrote, “_Mon Dieu_, how great you are—you and Auguste Rodin!” “_Mon Dieu_,” indeed! Was this girl becoming sophisticated, like the others? Time would tell. Early in the morning, on May 15th, I had a telephone message to the effect that Miss Clarenden, according to promise, would revisit my studio promptly at ten, if I would permit. As I have always been a collector of coincidences, I noted with zest that May 15th was exactly one year from the date of my absurd one-sided party-of-the-first-part contract concerning the marble hand. I further noted, not without dismay, that Senator Bullwinkle was to have his final sitting that very afternoon. Still adding to my collection, I recalled that it had happened like that the year before; Clarenden day had been Bullwinkle day, a day of mingled sun and cloud.