"Yes, but look," I jested in reply, "I wear a tie ... and the ends pull exactly even. That's the one thing you taught me about correct dressing that I'll never forget." "If I could only persuade you, Johnnie, of the importance of little things, of putting one's best foot forward ... of personal appearance ... why create an initial prejudice in the minds of people you meet, that you'll afterward have to waste valuable time in trying to remove?" "Where are you putting up, Ally?" "At the Phi Nus" (the bunch that went in the most for style and society) "I'm a Phi Nu, keep in touch with me, Johnnie." "Keep in touch with me," was Merton's stock phrase.... "Mr. Mackworth asked me particularly to look you up, and 'take care of' you ... you made a hit with him ... but he's very much concerned about you--thinks you're too wild and erratic." * * * * * The tinshop was a noisy place, as I have said before. It was as uproarious as a boiler factory. All day long there was hammering, banging, and pounding below ... but I was growing used to it ... as you do to everything which must be. Keeping Randall's books occupied a couple of hours each morning or afternoon, whenever I chose. All the rest of the day I had free.... * * * * * I had almost come to the conclusion that the girl I had seen in the moonlight had been an apparition conjured up by my own imagination, when I glimpsed her, one afternoon, walking toward Hewitt Hall, where the art classes held session, in the upper rooms. I followed the girl, a long way behind. I saw her go in through the door to a class where already a group of students sat about with easels, painting from a girl-model ... fully clothed ... for painting from the nude was not allowed. They had threshed that proposition out long before, Professor Grant explained to me, once,--and the faculty had decided, in solemn conclave, that the farmers throughout the state were not yet prepared for that step.... I sought Grant's friendship. He had studied in the Julian Academy at Paris, in his youth. He invited me to his house for tea, often; where I met many of his students, but never, as I had hoped, the girl of the moonlight.... But by careful and guarded inquiry I found out who she was ... a girl from the central portion of the state, named Vanna Andrews. When Grant asked me to pose for his class, sandals, open shirt, corduroys, and all ... I agreed ... almost too eagerly ... he would pay me twenty-five cents an hour. My first day Vanna was not there. On the second, she came ... late ... her tiny, white face, crowned with its dark head of hair ... "a star in a jet-black cloud," I phrased, to myself. She sailed straight in like a ship. When she had settled herself,--beginning to draw, she appraised me coolly, impartially, for a moment ... took my dimensions for her paper, pencil held at arm's length....