The studio was a vast room distempered in bluish grey, and Aline, sitting solitary at the far end, in the line of a broad quivering beam of light that streamed through a lofty window running the whole width of the north-east side, looked like a little brown saint in a bare conventual hall. For an ascetic simplicity was the studio's key-note. No curtains, draperies, screens, Japaneseries, no artistic scheme of decoration, no rare toys of furniture filled the place with luxurious inspiration. Here and there about the walls hung a sketch by a brother artist; of his own unsold pictures and studies some were hung, others stacked together on the floor. An old, rusty, leather drawing-room suite distributed about the studio afforded sitting accommodation. There was the big easel bearing the subject-picture on which he now was at work, with a smaller easel carrying the study by its side. On the model-stand a draped lay figure sprawled grotesquely. A long deal table was the untidy home of piles of papers, books, colours, brushes, artistic properties. A smaller table at the end where Aline sat was laid for breakfast. It was one of Jimmie's eccentricities to breakfast in the studio. The dining-room for dinner--he yielded to the convention; for lunch, perhaps; for breakfast, no. All his intimate life had been passed in the studio; the prim little drawing-room he scarcely entered half-a-dozen times in the year. Aline was contemplating the hole in the sock when the door opened. She sprang to her feet, advanced a step, and then halted with a little exclamation. “Oh, it's you!” “Yes. Are you disappointed?” asked the smiling youth who had appeared instead of the expected Jimmie. “I can get over it. How are you, Tony?” Mr. Anthony Merewether gave her the superfluous assurance that he was in good health. He had the pleasant boyish face and clean-limbed figure of the young Englishman upon whom cares sit lightly. Aline resumed her work demurely. The young man seated himself near by. “How is Jimmie?” “Whom are you calling 'Jimmie'?” asked Aline. “Mr. Padgate, if you please.” “You call him Jimmie.” “I've called him so ever since I could speak. I think it was one of the first three words I learned. When you can say the same, you can call him Jimmie.” “Well, how is Mr. Padgate?” the snubbed youth asked with due humility. “You can never tell how a man is before breakfast. Why are n't you at work?” He bowed to her sagacity, and in answer to her question explained the purport of his visit. He was going to spend the day sketching up the river. Would she put on her hat and come with him? “A fine lot of sketching you'd do, if I did,” said Aline. The young man vowed with fervour that as soon as he had settled down to a view he would work furiously and would not exchange a remark with her. “Which would be very amusing for me,” retorted Aline. “No, I can't come. I'm far too busy. I've got to hunt up a model for the new picture.”