"And you'll stand by me if our engagement goes through?" "Yes, I--will try to." "Good business! Now, if you really are what I have an idea you are, I'll know pretty quick whether I can use you for the Byzantine job." He rose, walked over to a pair of closed folding doors and opened them. "You can undress in there," he said. "I think you will find everything you need." For a second she sat rigid, her black-gloved hands doubled, her eyes fastened on him as though fascinated. He had already turned and sauntered over to one of several easels where he picked up the lump of charcoal in its silver foil. The colour began to come back into her face--swifter, more swiftly: the vast blank window with its amber curtains stared at her; she lifted her tragic gaze and saw the sheet of glass above swimming in crystal light. Through it clouds were dissolving in the bluest of skies; against it a spiderweb of pendant cords drooped from the high ceiling; and she saw the looming mystery of huge canvases beside which stepladders rose surmounted by little crow's-nests where the graceful oval of palettes curved, tinted with scraped brilliancy. "What a dreamer you are!" he called across the studio to her. "The light is fine, now. Hadn't we better take advantage of it?" She managed to find her footing; contrived to rise, to move with apparent self-possession toward the folding doors. "Better hurry," he said, pleasantly. "If you're what I need we might start things now. I am all ready for the sort of figure I expect you have." She stepped inside the room and became desperately busy for a moment trying to close the doors; but either her hands had suddenly become powerless or they shook too much; and when he turned, almost impatiently, from his easel to see what all that rattling meant, she shrank hastily aside into the room beyond, keeping out of his view. The room was charming--not like the studio, but modern and fresh and dainty with chintz and flowered wall-paper and the graceful white furniture of a bed-room. There was a flowered screen there, too. Behind it stood a chair, and onto this she sank, laid her hands for an instant against her burning face, then stooped and, scarcely knowing what she was about, began to untie her patent-leather shoes. He remained standing at his easel, very busy with his string and lump of charcoal; but after a while it occurred to him that she was taking an annoyingly long time about a simple matter. "What on earth is the trouble?" he called. "Do you realise you've been in there a quarter of an hour?" She made no answer. A second later he thought he heard an indistinct sound--and it disquieted him. "Miss West?" There was no reply. Impatient, a little disturbed, he walked across to the folding doors; and the same low, suppressed sound caught his ear. "What in the name of--" he began, walking into the room; and halted, amazed.