"I think if I make any money out of this," he said to Angela, "we will go to Paris this summer. I have always wanted to see Paris. In the fall we'll come back and take a studio up town. They are building some dandy ones up in Sixty-fifth Street." He was thinking of the artists who could pay three and four thousand dollars a year for a studio. He was thinking of men who made four, five, six and even eight hundred dollars out of every picture they painted. If he could do that! Or if he could get a contract for a mural decoration for next winter. He had very little money laid by. He had spent most of his time this winter working with these pictures. "Oh, Eugene," exclaimed Angela, "it seems so wonderful. I can hardly believe it. You a really, truly, great artist! And us going to Paris! Oh, isn't that beautiful. It seems like a dream. I think and think, but it's hard to believe that I am here sometimes, and that your pictures are up at Kellner's and oh!--" she clung to him in an ecstasy of delight. Out in the park the leaves were just budding. It looked as though the whole square were hung with a transparent green net, spangled, as was the net in his room, with tiny green leaves. Songsters were idling in the sun. Sparrows were flying noisily about in small clouds. Pigeons were picking lazily between the car tracks of the street below. "I might get a group of pictures illustrative of Paris. You can't tell what we'll find. Charles says he will have another exhibition for me next spring, if I'll get the material ready." He pushed his arms above his head and yawned deliciously. He wondered what Miss Finch thought now. He wondered where Christina Channing was. There was never a word in the papers yet as to what had become of her. He knew what Norma Whitmore thought. She was apparently as happy as though the exhibition had been her own. "Well, I must go and get your lunch, Honeybun!" exclaimed Angela. "I have to go to Mr. Gioletti, the grocer, and to Mr. Ruggiere, the vegetable man." She laughed, for the Italian names amused her. Eugene went back to his easel. He was thinking of Christina--where was she? At that moment, if he had known, she was looking at his pictures, only newly returned from Europe. She had seen a notice in the _Evening Post_. "Such work!" Christina thought, "such force! Oh, what a delightful artist. And he was with me." Her mind went back to Florizel and the amphitheatre among the trees. "He called me 'Diana of the Mountains,'" she thought, "his 'hamadryad,' his 'huntress of the morn.'" She knew he was married. An acquaintance of hers had written in December. The past was past with her--she wanted no more of it. But it was beautiful to think upon--a delicious memory. "What a queer girl I am," she thought. Still she wished she could see him again--not face to face, but somewhere where he could not see her. She wondered if he was changing--if he would ever change. He was so beautiful then--to her. CHAPTER VIII