She answered by a little conventional laugh which might mean anything. Both of them hesitated a moment, their real feeling being too deep for it to be easy quickly to call to mind conventionalities of talk. Then the sculptor turned to lead the way up the studio, waving his hand as he did so toward the place where he had been working. "You couldn't have come more opportunely," remarked he. "You are just in time to criticise my model for _America_. I was just looking it over for the last touches." "It was that I came to talk about," Helen returned, moving forward toward the modelling stand on which was a figure in clay. "I have just learned that the commission has already been awarded; and I thought you ought to know how the committee is acting." "I do know," he answered. "Mr. Hubbard came and told me, although the committee meant to keep the decision quiet until after the models were in." "But you are finishing yours." "Yes, I declined to enter a competition and was hired to make a model. Of course I finish that, whatever the decision of the committee. Mr. Hubbard told me because he had before assured me of his support, and he wished to avoid even the suspicion of double dealing." "The action of the committee is outrageous!" Helen protested, indignantly. "They might as well put up a tobacconist's sign as the thing Orin Stanton will make. It shows that you are right in refusing to enter a competition, since they have decided without even seeing the models they asked for." "Yes," was Herman's reply. He paused a moment, and added, "Was that the reason you withdrew?" Helen flushed slightly, and turned her face aside. "It hardly seemed worth while," she began; but he interrupted her. "I would not have gone in," he said, "even as I did, if I had known there was a chance of your competing." She turned toward him, and her eyes unconsciously said what she had been careful not to put into words. "Ah!" he exclaimed, with sudden comprehension. "You knew I was in it and that is why you withdrew." "Well," she said, trying to laugh lightly, "it would not have been modest for me to compete against my master." She moved away as she spoke. She had a tingling sense of his nearness, a passionate yearning to turn toward him and to break down all barriers which made her afraid. She felt that she had been rash in coming to the studio, and had overestimated her own strength. She glanced around quickly, as if in search of something which would help to bring the conversation to conventional levels; but her eye fell upon a terra-cotta figure which sent the blood surging into her head so fiercely that a rushing sound seemed to fill her ears. It was the nude figure of a soldier lying dead upon a trampled mound, with broken poppies about him, while across the pedestal ran the inscription,-- "I strew these opiate flowers Round thy restless pillow."