The grateful Burnett drew forth his cigarette-case and while his model rested busied himself among his tubes of paint, squeezing the colors out upon the palette. "If you only knew," he sighed, "how very difficult it seems." But the large brush dipped into the paint and Burnett worked vigorously, a fine light glowing in his eyes. Miss Darrow watched the generous flow from the oil cup mingling with the colors. "What a lot of vermilion you use!" [Illustration: "'What a lot of vermilion you use.'"] "Hair," he replied. He seemed so absorbed that she said no more, and she didn't know whether to laugh or frown. Later she ventured: "If it's carroty I'll never speak to you again. Please make it auburn, Mr. Burnett." He only worked the more rapidly. He seemed to be dipping into every color upon the palette, in the center of which had grown a brown of the color of walnut-juice. This he was applying vigorously to the lower part of the canvas. When the palette was cleared he put it aside and sank back in a chair with a sigh. "Rest," said the artist. "I'm not in the least tired," she replied. "But _I_ am. It takes it out of me to be so interested." "Does it?" She leaned back in her chair, regarding him with a new curiosity. "Do you know," she added, "you are full of surprises----" She ignored the inquiry of his upraised brows. "----and paint," she finished with a laugh. He ruefully eyed a discolored thumb. "I'm awfully untidy, I know. I've always been. In Paris they called me Slovenly Peter." "I shouldn't say that--only----" "What?" "Only----" she indicated several streaks of black on his grey walking-suit. "Must one always pay such a price to inspiration?" "Jove! That _was_ stupid. I always do, though, Miss Darrow." He examined the spots and touched them with the tips of his fingers. "It's paint," he finished, examining it with a placidity almost impersonal. "It doesn't matter in the least." "And do you always smudge your face?" she asked sweetly. He looked at himself in the mirror. There was a broad streak of red across his forehead. He wiped it off with a handkerchief. "Oh, please don't laugh." He sank upon the edge of the throne, and then they both laughed joyously, naturally, like two children. "I'm an awfully lucky fellow," he said, at last. "I feel like a feudal baron with a captured princess. Here are you, that most inaccessible of persons, the Woman of Society, doomed every morning for two weeks to play Darby and Joan with a man you've known only three days. How on earth can a fellow survive seeing a girl he likes behind cups of tea! It's rough, I think. Society seems to accomplish every purpose but its avowed one. Instead of which everybody plays puss-in-the-corner. A fellow might have a chance if the corners weren't so far apart. And I, just back from abroad with all the skeins of old friendship at a loose end, walk into your circle and quietly appropriate you for a fortnight--while your other friends go a-begging."