I had parted my ulster in coming up the stairs, and my dress beneath showed. The contrast struck me as brutal. For one moment I was conscious of it; I don't think that she was, even for one moment. I don't think she saw anything of me but my eyes. I did not of her. Billy had turned his back on his work, but still she did not move. More even than my own ceremonial dress the bit of crochet woolwork that lay on the edge of the throne seemed to accentuate the drama that was all sight, with never a word spoken. As if my eyes had moved from hers, which they did not, I seemed to see the whole of that room that had been my own--the imps beyond the sills, Billy's traps, his arrangements of curtains about the four windows, the bed behind the screen where I divined her clothing to lie. I say I saw all these things without once looking at them.... The exquisite study was on the easel, and I saw that too--the thing as it was, east-lighted, admirably cool, the work of an unrepeatable two hours. Billy, I knew, would look on that canvas on the morrow as an athlete afterwards measures with astonishment his effortless jump. It was the eye's flawless understanding.... "It isn't a picture," Billy grunted over his shoulder, his fingers rattling the tubes in his box. "Where the deuce did I put that palette-knife?--Just a study--I had it in my hand not two minutes ago----" Still she and I stood as motionless as a couple of stones. "Dashed if I won't be methodical yet! I never--ah, here it is.... Right, Louie; I've finished. Chuck my coat over the screen, will you? Sorry, Jeff--I'd forgotten the time--but I must wash these brushes." My eyes parted from Louie Causton's as reluctantly as a piece of soft iron parts from the end of the magnet. She moved, became alive, stepped down from the throne; and as she passed without noise to the screen I saw again, by what legerdemain of visual memory I cannot tell you, the soft flow of draperies that had always drawn my eyes as she had moved about the old Business College in Holborn. Not until she had disappeared did I myself move from the spot I had occupied since I had taken my first two strides into the room. "Just turn that thing with its face to the wall; I don't want to see it till morning," said Billy, bustling about. "Sha'n't be a minute----" He dashed out with a cake of soap and a handful of brushes. The tap was on the landing below. From behind the screen came soft sounds as Miss Causton dressed.... I have wasted paper in trying to set down what my thoughts and sensations were. Not to waste any more, I will tell you instead what I did. It was some minutes later, and already the running of the tap at which Billy was washing his brushes below had ceased. Time pressed. Without quite knowing how I got there, I was standing by the screen. I spoke in a low and very hurried voice. "Miss Causton----" The moving of clothes stopped. "I can't see you now--I'm late already," I said.