He rapidly formulated his plan of action, and even the sentences with which he was to meet and conquer this modern Circe. "I will keep Eva's face before me," he thought, "and I will treat her coldly. She is high-spirited and keen; she will notice the change at once and resent it. She is too proud to demand an explanation." He felt himself equal to the ordeal. He was anxious now for her to come that it might be safely passed. As the hours went by he grew impatient; he placed her portrait on the easel and fancied the original was before him. He went through an imaginary dialogue with it in which he was wholly victorious. He no longer felt any emotion for this woman. "I will begin a new life," he said, as he strode rapidly up and down the room; "a new life." But there was a feverishness in his voice that did not bode well for his resolution. "I wish she would come," he muttered, fretfully. His cheeks were hot and flushed, and his hands were like ice, and trembling. And the result was--that he failed--failed miserably and completely. When, an hour later, Evelin March entered the studio and, throwing off her wrap, stood before him, imperious, soulless and beautiful--a delicate odor, as of pansies, from her white flesh, stealing into his brain--his pledges of faith and his fair resolves melted away like walls of mist, and the face of Eva Delorme shrank back into the silent recesses of his heart, and only a small voice within him whispered, "Coward--traitor--" She glanced at him sharply. "Something troubles you, _mon ami_. You are not overjoyed at my coming. I have been fancying to myself how impatiently you were waiting." His hands were no longer trembling. He was calm enough, now, but it was the calmness of defeat--of having yielded to the inevitable. "I have indeed been waiting impatiently," he said, smiling. "You see that I have been even consoling myself with your picture," and he pointed to the easel. "From an artistic point of view, only, I fancy." "That is unkind. I have been holding a conversation with it that I fear I should hesitate to repeat--with the original." "How interesting! A rehearsal, perhaps." "Perhaps; and I was testing the powers of my work as compared to those of the original." "And with the result"-- "That my work is a failure." "How humiliating! May I ask in what way?" "I could withstand the charms of the picture, but with the original"-- "Well, and with the original?" "I failed." The face before him was radiant; but down in his heart the small voice, growing very faint, still whispered, "Coward--traitor--fool." That evening Harry Lawton found him sitting gloomily before the window looking out upon the shadows that were gathering in the little garden beneath. As the door opened he glanced up and nodded without speaking. "Circe came?" Again the artist nodded. "And conquered?" Another nod. "Did you suppose for a moment that she wouldn't?" No answer.