Her smile was of the kind that grants no superiority even to a man of unusual enlightenment. "You can’t imagine how interested I am in hearing your opinion of the dear boy’s work, and so I’ve been letting you run on. He happens to be a very intimate friend of ours—he comes down to stay with us every few weeks—and I’ve been watching his development so keenly. I really do think that with this picture he’ll arrive; and to have a man like you agree with me delights me beyond words." It was also the excuse she needed for calling Hubert up. More than two months had passed since her meeting with Jennie, and the twenty-five thousand dollars was still lying to her credit at the bank. She was not unaware of a reason for this, in that Bradley had told her of old Follett’s death, and even a "bad girl" like Jennie must be allowed some leeway for grief. But Follett had been nearly two weeks in his grave, and still the application for the twenty-five thousand didn’t come. Unless a pretext could be found for keeping Bob in South America, he would soon be on his way homeward, and she, Junia, was growing anxious. To be face to face with Hubert would give her the opportunity she was looking for. He met her at the street entrance to the Kahler Gallery, conducting her through the main exposition of canvases to a little shrine in the rear. It was truly a shrine, hung in black velvet, and with no lighting but that which fell indirectly on the vivid, vital thing just sprung into consciousness of life, like Aphrodite risen from the sea foam. But, just sprung into consciousness of life, she had been called on at once to contemplate death, eying it with a mysterious spiritual courage. The living gleam of flesh, the marble of the throne, and the skull’s charnel ugliness stood out against a blue-green atmosphere, like that of some other plane. Junia was startled, not by the power and beauty of this apparition, but by something else. "You’ve—you’ve changed her," she said, with awed breathlessness, after gazing for three or four minutes in silence. "You mean the model?" She nodded a "Yes," without taking her eyes from the extraordinary vision. "You’ve seen her?" he asked, in mild surprise. "Just once." "The figure is exact," he explained, "but I did have to make changes in the features. It wouldn’t have done, otherwise." "No, of course not." More minutes passed in silent contemplation, when she said: "I thought there was more of the gleam of the red in amber in the hair. This hair is a brown with a little red in it." "I got it as nearly as I could," he felt it enough to say. "The shade and sheen and silkiness of hair are always difficult." After more minutes of hushed gazing, Junia made a venture. She spoke in that insinuating, sympathetic tone which in moments of tensity a woman can sometimes take toward a man. "You’re in love with her—aren’t you?" He jerked his head in the direction of the nude woman.