It was a large room, unfurnished except for a couch in a recess of the wall and a table with two chairs drawn up under an electric-light bulb which hung from the ceiling. The walls were covered from floor to cornice by an arras of black velvet, falling in full, vertical folds, sequestering the apartment in soft gloom. Over the couch, this drapery was embroidered with the signs of the zodiac in a circle—all else was shadowy and mysterious. The young woman walked into the place with her leisurely stride—her chin a little up-tilted, her eyes curious. In the center of the room she stopped and looked slowly and deliberately about her. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly with amusement, evidently at the obvious picturesqueness of the studio. Granthope watched her keenly. With his eyes and ears full of Fancy Gray’s ardent, dramatic youth, sparkling with the sophistication of the city, slangy, audacious, gay, this girl seemed almost unreal in her delicacy and exquisite virginity, a creature of dreams and faery, the personification of an ideal too fine and fragile for every-day. Her face showed caste in every line. He was a little afraid of her. Her bearing compelled not only respect, but, in a way, reverence—a tribute he seldom had felt inclined to pay to the _mondaines_ who visited him. His confidence, however, soon asserted itself. He had found that all women were alike—there were, as in chess, several openings to his game, but, once started, the strategy was simple. "Well, how do you like my studio?" "It’s like dreams I’ve had," she said. "I like it. It’s so simple." "Most people think it too somber." "It is somber; but that purple-black is wonderful in the way it takes the light. And it’s all so different!" "Yes, I flatter myself it is that. But I’m ’different’ myself." "Are you?" She turned her eyes steadfastly upon him for the first time, as if mentally appraising him, as he stood, six feet of virility, handsome, vivid and nonchalant. The color which had risen to her cheeks still remained. "You are, too," he went on, examining her as deliberately. She smiled faintly and took a seat by the table and removed her veil. Her face was now clearly illuminated, and Granthope’s eyes, traveling from feature to feature in quest of significant details, fell upon her left cheek. His look was arrested at the sight of a brown velvety mole, a veritable beauty-spot, heightening the color of her skin. It was charming, making her face piquant and human. His hand went to his forehead thoughtfully.