The opinion had no weight, yet he smiled. He was in a frame to be easily pleased. For one thing the sun shone; for another, he was free from headache; for a third, he felt that his sitter would bring inspiration. With all his outward placidity, Colin was an artist in temperament; a weather barometer; a creature of moods. "Do all sculptors work as fast as you?" "There are different modes. Not only one excellent way. Some do it slowly, adding pellets, not lumps. Each has to follow the method by which he can produce the best results. The broader and quicker method suits me." "You seem to build it up," she murmured. "That is the essence of clay-modelling. It is a literal building up. In marble sculpture one has the reverse—carving away material, and leaving the figure exposed." "You mean it was there all the time, shut up in prison, and it had to be set free," she suggested, with a happy little laugh. That brought his eyes upon her. "Precisely. But only a sculptor can see it there, before he cuts away the mass that hides it." Colin had made a rough clay sketch of Phyllys in the attitude which first attracted him, and this rendered it easy to place her anew in the same position. She had to gaze at a bust, and could no longer watch his manipulations: so time passed slowly. A quarter of an hour seemed like a full hour; and to maintain the position was difficult. She tried to find entertainment in chatting about Midfell, but his murmurs of assent acted as a check, and she sank into silence, which soon meant an expression utterly "dead." He had to arouse himself that he might arouse her. This day all went well, and he proved merciful, allowing frequent rests. In days following the work advanced more slowly; nay, even stood still. He could not satisfy himself. He would stand, doing nothing, gazing at his sitter, with an air of calm aloofness, as if trying to read her soul. The aloofness prevented self-consciousness. Sometimes she wondered what it was that he saw or wished to see. Sometimes she had a sense that he saw deeper than other men—than Giles, for example. But all the while she recognised that she was his "sitter" pure and simple. He was studying a model for artistic purposes. He was not troubling himself to know Phyllys Wyverne for her own sake. Then, when fifty minutes of endurance were ended, he would move, would hope she was not tired, would offer her the armchair, would ask whether she minded a cigarette, would change in a moment from the artist to the host. She found in him a dual nature; not like that of Giles, simple, homogeneous, the same throughout. One hour he was sculptor; another hour he was man. Perhaps she admired him more as sculptor, and liked him more as man; but the combination had power.