While he was waiting he opened the album and looked at what he supposed were her relatives--commonplace people, all--clerks, salesmen, store-keepers. Presently Ruby came, and then his eye lighted, for there was about her a smartness of youth--she was not more than nineteen--which captivated his fancy. She had on a black cashmere dress with touches of red velvet at the neck and elsewhere, and she wore a loose red tie, much as a boy might. She looked gay and cheerful and held out her hand. "Did you have much trouble in getting here?" she asked. He shook his head. "I know this country pretty well. I collect all through here week days. I work for the Peoples' Furniture Company, you know." "Oh, then it's all right," she said, enjoying his frankness. "I thought you'd have a hard time finding it. It's a pretty bad day, isn't it?" Eugene admitted that it was, but commented on the car tracks he had seen. "If I could paint at all I'd like to paint those things. They're so big and wonderful." He went to the window and gazed out at the neighborhood. Ruby watched him with interest. His movements were pleasing to her. She felt at home in his company--as though she were going to like him very much. It was so easy to talk to him. There were the classes, her studio work, his own career, this neighborhood, to give her a feeling of congeniality with him. "Are there many big studios in Chicago?" he asked when they finally got around to that phase of her work. He was curious to know what the art life of the city was. "No, not so very many--not, at least, of the good ones. There are a lot of fellows who think they can paint." "Who are the big ones?" he asked. "Well, I only know by what I hear artists say. Mr. Rose is pretty good. Byam Jones is pretty fine on _genre_ subjects, so they say. Walter Low is a good portrait painter, and so is Manson Steele. And let's see--there's Arthur Biggs--he does landscapes only; I've never been in his studio; and Finley Wood, he's another portrait man; and Wilson Brooks, he does figures--Oh! I don't know, there are quite a number." Eugene listened entranced. This patter of art matters was more in the way of definite information about personalities than he had heard during all the time he had been in the city. The girl knew these things. She was in the movement. He wondered what her relationship to these various people was? He got up after a time and looked out of the window again. She came also. "It's not very nice around here," she explained, "but papa and mamma like to live here. It's near papa's work." "Was that your father I met at the door?" "They're not my real parents," she explained. "I'm an adopted child. They're just like real parents to me, though, I certainly owe them a lot." "You can't have been posing in art very long," said Eugene thoughtfully, thinking of her age. "No; I only began about a year ago."