"Don't," he entreated again. And then without waiting for more he took his hat and slipped quietly out of the studio. Jill scarcely noticed his departure, did not even speculate as to his object in thus unceremoniously leaving, nor wonder whether he was likely to return or not. She was rather relieved at finding herself alone, and able to give vent to the emotion she could no longer repress. Sitting down at the table in the seat which St. John had so suddenly vacated she laid her head upon his drawing-board and wept all over the paper. The outburst, which was purely neurotic,--such outbursts usually are--had been gathering for days past, and had culminated with the fall of Clytie--the breaking of the bust which her father had so loved. Alas! for the sweet, sad, absurd associations which cling about the things that the dead have touched. St. John was not away very long; he had been to a shop that he knew of quite handy, and had driven there and back thanks to the stupid cabs that Miss Bolton found so inconvenient. He had bought another bust of Clytie, an altogether superior article in Parian marble which he carried back to the studio in triumph quite expecting to see Jill's grief vanish at sight of it, and tears give place to smiles. He found her still seated at the table; she was not crying any longer; but the traces of recent emotion were sufficiently apparent for him to detect at a glance. The sight sobered him instantly, and he approached with less confidence in the efficiency of his purchase than had possessed him when out of her presence. "It's all right," he exclaimed, speaking as cheerfully as he could, and placing the new Clytie on the table among the ruins of her predecessor, "I managed to get another. I hope you'll like it as well as the one I broke. It was confoundedly clumsy of me. But you aren't angry with me still?" "No," answered Jill, raising her head to view the Clytie as he drew off the paper wrapping for her to see. "Oh!" she cried, "it is far too good; mine was only plaster." "Was it?" he said slowly. "And yet, I fancy, you preferred it infinitely to this one." Jill's lips quivered ominously again, and half unconsciously as it were she fingered one of the broken pieces in lingering regret. "It had associations," she said simply. He stooped forward so that he could see her face, and his hand sought hers where it rested upon the table, and with a kindly pressure imprisoned it while he spoke. "Can't you form associations round this one too?" he asked. For a moment there was silence. Then she looked back at him and smiled faintly. "I have commenced doing so already," she answered, and, quietly withdrawing her hand, rose and stood back a little the better to admire his purchase. "It was dreadfully extravagant of you to buy a thing like that just for an art school model," she exclaimed. "It ought to be in some drawing-room instead of here."