Clytie moved about the studio singing, a sign with her of great content. The window was open and the morning sun streamed in, filling the large and somewhat heavily tapestried room with gay light. It glorified Clytie as she passed across the patch of sunlight, falling upon her hair in a thousand scintillations and revealing the deep sea-blue of her eyes. She wore a soft cream morning gown, a golden tasselled girdle round her waist, an edging of old lace round the somewhat open neck. The wide, drooping sleeves she had caught up a little for convenience in working, and her arms were bare to the elbow. The skirt clung around her as she walked quickly about the room, with her old elastic tread, making a soft frou-frou that pleased her, she did not know why. She was happy again, filled with a double sense of the meaning of life. At last she sat down before a small easel, on which was put the board with its fair sheet of Whatman paper ready for the first sketch. In her rapid, eager way she commenced to indicate the motive of the picture that had flashed like an inspiration upon her. In the middle distance on the left a pair of lovers, the woman looking with upturned face at the man, whose arm was round her waist. In the foreground, peeping at them from behind a clump of bushes, a girl of about seventeen, with a letter in her hand. The contrast between the two female faces was the motive--the fulfilment of knowledge on the one, the dawning revelation on the other. The title had come with the conception: “Maiden and Woman.” Clytie worked on steadily with her _ébauche_, keen, sure of herself, tingling once again with the excitement of inspiration. She knew she could put that in their faces which would raise the picture above the narrative prettiness of Sant and his school. The accessories were to be severe to austerity. No elaborate detail in tree painting, no subtle effects of light and shade. The principle of abstraction to be as uncompromisingly carried out as in one of Seymour Haden's etchings. The whole artistic force of the picture was to be concentrated in the awakened and awakening souls. She was absorbed in her work when, after a tap at the door, Jack came in. Clytie looked up with a smile. “You here again, Jack! That is good of you. But I can't say a word to you--positively. I am so busy. Sit down somewhere until I have finished.”