But to-day Ninitta was a different woman, changed by the agony of a night into which had been compressed the bitterness of years. She had been too sharply wounded at being greeted by a hand-shake in place of the too well remembered kisses, with commonplace kind inquiries instead of an embrace, not to realize at least how entirely the relations between herself and Herman were changed. She did not understand the alteration, it is true. To do that would have required not only a knowledge of facts of which she could have no cognizance, but far keener powers of reason than were centered in Ninitta's shapely head. Only of one thing she was sure; there the instinct of her sex stood her in good stead. She was convinced that some other woman had won the sculptor's love from her. When she came into Helen's studio this morning she watched sharply for some token which should show her the relations in which the two artists stood to each other; but she could detect nothing significant. Mrs. Greyson was intent only upon her work, and whatever the sculptor may have felt at the meeting of Helen and Ninitta, he made no outward sign. The model showed a quickness of comprehension in taking the pose required, and the shoulder she bared was of so exquisite mold that Helen's keenest artistic powers were aroused. Ninitta understood the art of posing as a painter knows the use of brush and colors; she had for it an inborn capacity impossible except in the child of an art land. Moved by the inspiration of that most beautiful bust, Mrs. Greyson worked enthusiastically, scarcely noticing when her master left the room, an indication of indifference which the model did not fail to note. XII. WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED. Hamlet; iv.--7. It was February, and the night but one before the day fixed for Arthur Fenton's marriage. He was spending the evening with Mrs. Greyson, and it chanced that Grant Herman and Fred Rangely were also there. The sculptor went seldom to the house of his pupil, and when he did visit her, he satisfied some fine, secret delicacy by taking always a friend with him. Helen was sufficiently Bohemian or sufficiently unworldly to care little if people criticised her way of living. She had inherited a small property which made her comfortable and independent; and she declined being hampered by a chaperon. "My art is my chaperon," she wrote to an elderly relative who wished to come to Boston and matronize her. "A woman who is daring enough to be an artist is regarded as bold enough to take care of herself, I suppose. At least nobody troubles me, and I ask nothing more."