He looked up, scowled, and then resumed his gazing across the Pond. Then he watched the passage of a horse and cart through the water, looked up again, and broke out. "It goes rottenly--that's how it goes!" he growled. "Do you remember coming into my place one evening when I had a girl sitting for me--tallish girl, with a perfectly exquisite figure--Louie Causton her name was?" I said that I did remember it. "Well, she's the trouble. I want her--must have her--and I can't get her. She says she isn't sitting any more; her doctor's forbidden it. Her doctor!... The jade's as sound as a bell; she never had a doctor in her life, I'll swear; she just won't sit, doesn't want to. She wheedled that sketch out of me too, the one I was doing that day--walked off with it under her arm--stole it, practically--and now I can't get her for love or money." This interested me. It interested me so much that to conceal my interest, I made a joke. "Oh? Tried both?" I said; but Billy went on. "Perhaps she'll change her mind when she finds she's nothing to live on. She'll sit in costume, it appears; some cock and bull story about chills; and she said, Couldn't I paint her in some old supers' duds that she can hire at the Models' Club for sixpence a day?--me painting theatrical wardrobes _à la_ Coleman, Roma?... And her crochet!" "What about her crochet?" "Her crochet? Why, when I told her she wouldn't make fifteen shillings a week as Marguerite with the jewel-casket--she's not pretty--I told her so--she said she could fall back on her crochet! A goddess, I tell you ... and she pitches me a tale about a doctor that she can't help laughing at herself!" He ran on, to Louie's detriment from his special point of view, but already I was wondering what her own point of view might be. That I had not heard from Louie since that night of the Berkeley dinner had been, as far as it went, reassuring. Had she needed me, or I her, whichever in the tangled circumstances it might be, I should have heard from her; and I had had no reason for seeking her out. When Evie had told me that Louie now had charge of Kitty Windus she had told me nothing that I had not already known; and as Evie had had this from Miriam Levey, I find I must break off for a moment to speak of my relation with that lady.