Valerie looked at the pink patches of colour burning in his cheeks. There was a transparency to his skin, too, that troubled her. He was one of those big, blond, blue-eyed fellows whose vivid colour and fine-grained, delicate skin caused physicians to look twice. He had been reading when Valerie entered; now he laid his ponderous book away, doubled his arms back under his head and looked at Valerie with the placid, bovine friendliness which warmed her heart but always left a slight smile in the corner of her mouth. "Why do you always smile at me, Valerie?" he asked. "Because you're good, John, and I like you." "I know you do. You're a fine woman, Valerie.... So is Rita." "Rita is a darling." [Illustration: "'John, you don't look very well,' said Valerie."] "She's all right," he nodded. A moment later he added: "She comes from Massachusetts." Valerie laughed: "The sacred codfish smiled on your cradle, too, didn't it, John?" "Yes, thank God," he said seriously.... "I was born in the old town of Hitherford." "How funny!" exclaimed the girl. "What is there funny about that?" demanded John. "Why, Rita was born in Hitherford." "Hitherford Centre," corrected John. "Her father was a clergyman there." "Oh; so you knew it?" "I knew, of course, that she was from Massachusetts," said John, "because she speaks English properly. So I asked her where she was born and she told me.... My grandfather knew hers." "Isn't it--curious," mused the girl. "What's curious?" "Your meeting this way--as sculptor and model." "Rita is a very fine girl," he said. "Would you mind handing me my pipe? No, don't. I forgot that Rita won't let me. You see my chest is rather uncomfortable." He glanced at the clock, leaned over and gulped down some medicine, then placidly folding his hands, lay back: "How's Kelly?" "I haven't seen him to-day, John." "Well, he ought to be here very soon. He can take you and Rita to dinner." "I'm so sorry you can't come." "So am I." Valerie laid a cool hand on his face; he seemed slightly feverish. Rita came in at that moment, smiled at Valerie, and went straight to Burleson's couch: "Have you taken your medicine?" "Certainly." She glanced at the bottles. "Men are so horridly untruthful," she remarked to Valerie; "and this great, lumbering six-footer hasn't the sense of a baby--" "I have, too!" roared John, indignantly; and Valerie laughed but Rita scarcely smiled. "He's always working in a puddle of wet clay and he's always having colds and coughing, and there's always more or less fever," she said, looking down at the huge young fellow. "I know that he ought to give up his work and go away for a while--" "Where?" demanded Burleson indignantly. "Oh, somewhere--where there's plenty of--air. Like Arizona, and Colorado." "Do you think there's anything the matter with my lungs?" he roared.