"I've not forgotten," said Blizzard, "and some day I may hold you to your word. Right here and now I will ask something of you--an absolutely truthful answer to a question. Do you hate me?" Dr. Ferris turned the question over in his conscience, and presently said: "I am sorry. Yes." "Thank you," said Blizzard, who was not in the least disturbed. "I've often wondered, and even, putting a hypothetical case, thrashed the matter out with my friends. You _would_ hate me. It's thoroughly human. With me, for instance--I feel non-committal about a man. I decide to injure him. I do so. _And then_ I hate him. Now, if you have any message for Miss Barbara--or perhaps you came to see the bust. I will call Bubbles. He and Miss Barbara are the only persons allowed to touch the cloths. I think she'd let me uncover the thing, but, as you and I know so well, I am not tall enough." "My business with my daughter," said Dr. Ferris, "concerned you." Blizzard chuckled. "Her friends," said he, "have been at you to interfere. They have persuaded you that her model should be _persona non grata_ in the best studios. They have, in short, begged you to take me by the scruff of the neck and kick me out into the gutter where I belong. Well, kick me. You know as well as I do, that I can't kick back." "You hurt me very much," said Dr. Ferris simply, "if that is any pleasure to you." "It is," said Blizzard. "What your intuition has told you," continued Barbara's father, "is the truth. I had made up my mind to interfere." "Well, why should you?" "I have heard terrible things about you, Mr. Blizzard." "That I have done things which the world regards as terrible is true," returned the legless man imperturbably. "What of it? Haven't you?" Dr. Ferris turned away and slowly paced the length of the studio and back. "I owe you," he then said, "anything you choose to ask. But that is not the whole of my obligation to this world as I see it." "You will oblige me," said Blizzard, "by spitting out the moral homily into which you are trying to get your teeth. It is very simple. I do not wish to be sent away. I ask you not to send me. If your statement that you owe me anything I choose to ask amounts to two pins' worth, I think that I shall continue to pose for your daughter as long as she needs me." "Oh, I'm quite helpless," said Dr. Ferris; "I realize that." "Spoken like a man," said Blizzard. "And to show that my nature isn't entirely cruel, I'll tell you for your comfort that in Miss Barbara's presence the bad man is a very decent sort. We are almost friends, Doctor, she and I. She talks to me as if I were her equal. As for me, in this studio I have learned the habit of innocent thought. Only yesterday I took pleasure in the idea that in the world there are birds, and flowers, and green fields." The beggar's eyes glittered with a sardonic look. He watched the surgeon as a tiger might watch a stag. There was quite a long silence. Dr. Ferris broke it.