“Ru m-tu m-tu m-tum-tu m-tu m-tiddle, I’ll roll twenty pounds from off my middle. I have done it before. (Floppity-flop! Thump!) I can do it some more!” (Whoof!) By this time Maud’s key, silently inserted in the spring lock, had made connections. She threw the door open. Darcy, giving an imitation of a steam roller in full career toward the two entrants, was startled into a cry. She came to her feet with a bound, without pausing to touch so much as a finger to the floor, a detail which escaped the protruding eyes of her flatmates, and stood facing them flushed and defiant. “Well!” said Maud Raines. “What are you up to, Darcy?” asked Helen. “Exercising,” said Darcy blandly. “And practicing vocal music on the side,” remarked Maud. “Oh, that’s just for breathing,” exclaimed the girl. “But what’s it all _about?_” queried Helen. “I’ve gone into training.” “You! What for?” “Oh, I don’t know. Just for fun.” “You look it,” was Maud’s grim commentary. “Who’s training you?” “Andy Dunne. He trained John L. Sullivan and Gloria Greene.” “And which one are you modeling yourself on?” asked Maud maliciously. “Oh, I’d rather be like Gloria, of course,” retorted Darcy easily. “But I feel more like John L.” “I think it very clever of you, Darcy,” approved the kind-hearted Helen. “Englishmen are so athletic.” Darcy seized upon the convenient suggestion. “Monty is crazy for me to be a real sport,” she said modestly. “It’s a good thing he can’t see you learning,” remarked Maud. “Did you ever know anything more pathetic!” said Helen, when they had withdrawn, leaving Darcy to resume her exercises. “Pathetic! Driveling foolishness! Such a figure as she cuts! And it’s all such a waste,” concluded Maud, complacent in her own bright-hued prettiness. But a more discerning eye took a different view. Holcomb Lee, who hadn’t seen Darcy for some weeks, had no sooner said, “Hello!” in his usual offhand way, when he came to call that evening, than he seized a pencil and demanded a sheet of paper. “You’re always drawing Darcy!” said Maud disdainfully. “Just that curve from the ear down,” said he absently. “Something’s happened to it.” “What?” asked Maud. “It’s come true. The way I wanted it to be. Only better.” He took Darcy into the corner, under the light, and sketched busily. As his quick glances appraised her, a look of puzzlement came into his eyes. He leaned forward, and with the inoffensive impersonality of the one-ideaed artist ran his hand lightly over her shoulder and down the arm. “Moses!” said Holcomb Lee. Darcy had flexed her upper arm and the long, slender muscles came up like iron. “Training?” he asked. Darcy nodded. Again he regarded her subtly altered face. “What for? The chorus?” “Haven’t I been chorus long enough?” twinkled Darcy. “I get you,” said Lee with emphasis. “You’ll make the _ingénue_ hustle for her job, whoever she is. By Jinks, it’s a miracle!” “But don’t tell them,” said Darcy.