He put his arms around her and kissed her again; and she felt the boyish appeal in it and her lip quivered. But she could not respond, could not consider for one moment, could not permit her sympathy for him to enlist her against what she was devoutly convinced were his own most vital interests--his honour, his happiness, the success of his future career. She said with tears in her eyes: "Louis, I love you dearly. If God will grant us all a little patience and a little wisdom there will be a way made clear to all of us. Good-bye." [Illustration: "'Your--profession--must be an exceedingly interesting one,' said Lily."] Whether it was that the Almighty did not grant Mrs. Collis the patience to wait until a way was made clear, or whether another letter from her father decided her to clear that way for herself, is uncertain; but one day in March Valerie received a letter from Mrs. Collis; and answered it; and the next morning she shortened a seance with Querida, exchanged her costume for her street-clothes, and hastened to her apartments, where Mrs. Collis was already awaiting her in the little sitting-room. Valerie offered her hand and stood looking at Lily Collis, as though searching for some resemblance to her brother in the pretty, slightly flushed features. There was a very indefinite family resemblance. "Miss West," she said, "it is amiable of you to overlook the informality--" "I am not formal, Mrs. Collis," she said, quietly. "Will you sit here?" indicating an arm-chair near the window,--"because the light is not very good and I have some mending to do on a costume which I must pose in this afternoon." Lily Collis seated herself, her bewitched gaze following Valerie as she moved lightly and gracefully about, collecting sewing materials and the costume in question, and bringing them to a low chair under the north window. "I am sure you will not mind my sewing," she said, with a slight upward inflection to her voice, which made it a question. "Please, Miss West," said Lily, hastily. "It is really a necessity," observed Valerie threading her needle and turning over the skirt. "Illustrators are very arbitrary gentlemen; a model's failure to keep an engagement sometimes means loss of a valuable contract to them, and that isn't fair either to them or to their publishers, who would be forced to hunt up another artist at the last moment." "Your--profession--must be an exceedingly interesting one," said Lily in a low voice. Valerie smiled: "It is a very exacting one." There was a silence. Valerie's head was bent over her sewing; Mrs. Collis, fascinated, almost alarmed by her beauty, could not take her eyes from her. Outwardly Lily was pleasantly reserved, perfectly at ease with this young girl; inwardly all was commotion approaching actual consternation.