"All right, O'Hara. Much obliged. I won't need you again."
"Very good, Sorr."
The short, broad Irishman went out with another incurious glance aloft, and closed the outer door.
High up on her perch she watched the man below. He calmly removed coat and waistcoat, pulled a painter's linen blouse over his curly head, lighted a cigarette, picked up his palette, fastened a tin cup to the edge, filled it from a bottle, took a handful of brushes and a bunch of cheese cloth, and began to climb up a stepladder opposite her, lugging his sketch in the other hand.
He fastened the little sketch to an upright and stood on the ladder halfway up, one leg higher than the other.
"Now, Miss West," he said decisively.
At the sound of his voice fear again leaped through her like a flame, burning her face as she let slip the white wool robe.
"All right," he said. "Don't move while I'm drawing unless you have to."
She could see him working. He seemed to be drawing with a brush, rapidly, and with, a kind of assurance that appeared almost careless.
At first she could make out little of the lines. They were all dark in tint, thin, tinged with plum colour. There seemed to be no curves in them—and at first she could not comprehend that he was drawing her figure. But after a little while curves appeared; long delicate outlines began to emerge as rounded surfaces in monochrome, casting definite shadows on other surfaces. She could recognise the shape of a human head; saw it gradually become a colourless drawing; saw shoulders, arms, a body emerging into shadowy shape; saw the long fine limbs appear, the slender indication of feet.
Then flat on the cheek lay a patch of brilliant colour, another on the mouth. A great swirl of cloud forms sprang into view high piled in a corner of the canvas.
And now he seemed to be eternally running up and down his ladder, shifting it here and there across the vast white background of canvas, drawing great meaningless lines in distant expanses of the texture, then, always consulting her with his keen, impersonal gaze, he pushed back his ladder, mounted, wiped the big brushes, selected others smaller and flatter, considering her in penetrating silence between every brush, stroke.
She saw a face and hair growing lovely under her eyes, bathed in an iris-tinted light; saw little exquisite flecks of colour set here and there on the white expanse; watched all so intently, so wonderingly, that the numbness of her body became a throbbing pain before she was aware that she was enduring torture.
She strove to move, gave a little gasp; and he was down from his ladder and up on hers before her half-paralysed body had swayed to the edge of danger.
"Why didn't you say so?" he asked, sharply. "I can't keep track of time when I'm working!"
With arms and fingers that scarcely obeyed her she contrived to gather the white wool covering around her shoulders and limbs and lay back.
"You know," he said, "that it's foolish to act this way. I don't want to kill you, Miss West."
She only lowered her head amid its lovely crown of hair.
"You know your own limits," he said, resentfully. He looked down at the big clock: "It's a full hour. You had only to speak. Why didn't you?"
"I—I didn't know what to say."
"Didn't know!" He paused, astonished. Then: "Well, you felt yourself getting numb, didn't you?"
"Y-yes. But I thought it was—to be expected"—she blushed vividly under his astonished gaze: "I think I had better tell you that—that this is—the first time."
"The first time!"
"Yes…. I ought to have told you. I was afraid you might not want me."
"Lord above!" he breathed. "You poor—poor little thing!"
She began to cry silently; he saw the drops fall shining on the white wool robe, and leaned one elbow on the ladder, watching them. After a while they ceased, but she still held her head low, and her face was bent in the warm shadow of her hair.
"How could I understand?" he asked very gently.
"I—should have told you. I was afraid."
He said: "I'm terribly sorry. It must have been perfect torture for you to undress—to come into the studio. If you'd only given me an idea of how matters stood I could have made it a little easier. I'm afraid I was brusque—taking it for granted that you were a model and knew your business…. I'm terribly sorry."
She lifted her head, looked at him, with the tears still clinging to her lashes.
"You have been very nice to me. It is all my own fault."
He smiled. "Then it's all right, now that we understand. Isn't it?"
"Yes."
"You make a stunning model," he said frankly.
"Do I? Then you will let me come again?"
"Let you!" He laughed; "I'll be more likely to beg you."
"Oh, you won't have to," she said; "I'll come as long as you want me."
"That is simply angelic of you. Tell me, do you wish to descend to terra firma?"
She glanced below, doubtfully:
"N-no, thank you. If I could only stretch my—legs—"
"Stretch away," he said, much amused, "but don't tumble off and break into pieces. I like you better as you are than as an antique and limbless Venus."
She cautiously and daintily extended first one leg then the other under the wool robe, then eased the cramped muscles of her back, straightening her body and flexing her arms with a little sigh of relief. As her shy sidelong gaze reverted to him she saw to her relief that he was not noticing her. A slight sense of warmth, suffused her body, and she stretched herself again, more confidently, and ventured to glance around.
"Speaking of terms," he said in an absent way, apparently preoccupied with the palette which he was carefully scraping, "do you happen to know what is the usual recompense for a model's service?"
She said that she had heard, and added with quick diffidence that she could not expect so much, being only a beginner.
He polished the surface of the palette with a handful of cheese cloth:
"Don't you think that you are worth it?"
"How can I be until I know how to pose for you?"
"You will never have to learn how to pose, Miss West."
"I don't know exactly what you mean."
"I mean that some models never learn. Some know how already—you, for example."
She flushed slightly: "Do you really mean that?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say so if I didn't. It's merely necessary for you to accustom yourself to holding a pose; the rest you already know instinctively."
"What is the rest?" she ventured to ask. "I don't quite understand what you see in me—"
"Well," he said placidly, "you are beautifully made. That is nine-tenths of the matter. Your head is set logically on your neck, and your neck is correctly placed on your spine, and your legs and arms are properly attached to your torso—your entire body, anatomically speaking, is hinged, hung, supported, developed as the ideal body should be. It's undeformed, unmarred, unspoiled, and that's partly luck, partly inheritance, and mostly decent habits and digestion."
She was listening intently, interested, surprised, her pink lips slightly parted.
"Another point," he continued; "you seem unable to move or