He was pretty certain, however, that the method pursued in this present sitting was extraordinary; for this time the painter measured his head with a pair of calipers, up and down and in every direction, and noted down the figures on a piece of paper and regarded them thoughtfully. Then she came up to him and felt of his skull with her hands; it was not in the least like a caress—it was exactly as if she were a surgeon, and he were a patient, about to be operated upon. “Bones!” she said, as if that explained everything, and went to work on her canvas with a brush dipped in blue paint.... The result, which Felix viewed with a very queer sensation at the end of the sitting, was a skeleton-like figure done in blue, with arms and legs like pieces of steel machinery, and a face with dark blue eye sockets and a pale blue jaw.... “Lines of force,” explained the painter, and he went away not knowing whether to laugh or not. This skeleton was obliterated at the beginning of the fourth sitting, as the other stages of the picture had been, and Felix wondered, what next? Colour, it seemed, this time! Great splashes and daubs of colour, put on anyhow, spread out with a palette-knife, or the painter’s thumb—a riot, an orgy of rose and green and purple-brown, with only a suggestion of Felix amid the chromatic swirls.... Felix described each of these stages to Rose-Ann with zest, and went with infinite curiosity to every new sitting.... The fifth time there was a blank new canvas awaiting him, and when he asked what had become of the other, she replied: “Burned it up. All covered with paint. Always use a fresh canvas if you can afford it.” She emerged from her preoccupation with her palette long enough to become aware of his surprise, and to explain further: “All that was just getting acquainted with my subject. Now we’re ready to begin.”