"No, not always then," I laughed, wondering though if she didn't know that inspiration was in truth something more than eagerness. "Not even--when he is painting in a garden--like this?" Her eyes were brimming with a half-concealed mirth. "Oh, this garden is a lovely place," I answered, "but it wouldn't make all the picture--there's got to be some spirit in it beside--a kind of informing mood. Now it is very quiet here and you are posing for me----" "Oh! so I must be quiet, too?" "Yes, I suppose so," I answered boldly enough; "only, of course, a different kind of quiet, you know; for if the garden is still, that's because--well, there isn't anybody mowing the grass, or there isn't any wind or--oh, the quietness of a person sitting in a garden is quite a different thing." She kept looking at me all the time I was saying this, and then replied slowly: "I see; you don't want me just to sit still." "Certainly not," I answered. "I want you to be--" Her eyes suddenly became dreamy, and I felt much more at ease. "It's like David and the sunshine," she went on. "Yes, just exactly; you are to be the spirit of the garden, the human symbol of its mood--its real meaning," and happy that she understood the way I felt about David, I fell to laying on the paint in broad, easy strokes, wondering how I could ever imitate the emerald transparency of the trees. She did not speak again and presently my glance returned to her. She was holding David's cap in her hand and looking out--nowhere, I guess. I stopped my work, stepping back to study it and survey the scene. "I'm glad you like my garden," she finally said, smiling; and such a smile as she gave me--it was like a stream of golden haze on a white flower, a change very subtle, and yet so striking. "Your garden is the very best place yet I've found to work in," I said, well pleased. "It is just as fine a place as the Forest of Fontainebleau, and Corot did some great masterpieces there." "Well, then, this surely ought to be your masterpiece, because, according to your own definition, you have all the conditions just perfect; the garden, and David----" "Besides you," I interrupted, looking at her through the point of the easel, hoping to see the smile again; but she had suddenly changed her position, quite unconscious that in doing so she had spoiled the composition. But it made no difference, for I already had the posture, and the dress with its lavender and shell-pink lights and all the green behind--it was all there on the canvas, and the echo of it all on my pallet just like the memory of an overture which has played with all the various themes; and as to the rest--ah, she had indeed given me a glimpse of the tender mood and the stilling charm with which I wished to finish the picture. I was quite content. Presently a tide of yellow evening light flooded into the garden, making the ground luminous and throwing deep shadows everywhere. I laid down my brushes.