unexpected complication.

When the chess-board is a Florentine palace, and the pieces are fifteenth-century human beings, such complications are likely to occur. The Lady Lisa had more than once given evidence that she was not carved of wood or ivory. But for three years the situation had remained the same—the husband unobservant, the lady capricious and wilful. She had shown the artist more kindness than he cared to recall. That was months ago. Of late he had found scant favor in her sight.... It was better so.

He crossed to the easel, and stood looking down at it. The quiet figure on the canvas sent back a thrill of pride and dissatisfaction. He gazed at it bitterly. Three years—but an eternal woman. Some day he should catch the secret of her smile and fix it there. The world would not forget her—or him. He should not go down to posterity as the builder of a canal! The great picture at the Dominicans already showed signs of fading. The equestrian statue of the Duke was crumbling in its clay—no one to pay for the casting. But this picture——For months—with its rippling light of under sea, its soft dreamy background, and in the foreground the mysterious figure.... All was finished but the Child upon her arm, the smile of light in her eyes.

The lady had flouted the idea. It was a fancy of her husband's, to paint her as Madonna. She had refused to touch the Bambino—sometimes petulantly, sometimes in silent scorn. The tiny figure lay always on the studio floor, dusty and disarranged. The artist picked it up. It was an absurd little wooden face in the lace cap. He straightened the velvet mantle and smoothed the crumpled dress. He stepped to the model-stand and placed the tiny figure in the draped chair. It rested stiffly against the arm.

A light laugh caused him to turn his head. He was kneeling in front of the Bambino.

"I see that you have supplied my place, Sir Painter," said a mocking voice.

He turned quickly and faced the little doorway. She stood there, smiling, scornful, her hands full of some delicate flimsy stuff, a gold thimble-cap on her finger. "It would not make a bad picture," she said tranquilly, "you and the Bambino."

His face lighted up. "You have come!" He hastened toward her with outstretched hand.

With a pretty gesture of the fragile sewing she ignored the hand. "Yes, I dared not trust you. You might paint in the Bambino face instead of mine, by mistake."

She approached the chair and seated herself carelessly. The Bambino slipped meekly through the arm to the floor.

"Zano told me"—he began.

"Yes, I know. He was very tiresome. I thought he would never go. I really feared that we might quarrel. It is too warm." She glanced about the shaded room. "You manage it well," she said approvingly. "It is by far the coolest place in the palace."

"You will be going to the mountains soon?" He saw that she was talking lightly to cover herself, and fell in with her mood. He watched her as he arranged the easel and prepared his colors. Once he stopped and sketched rapidly for a minute on the small drawing-board.

She looked inquiry.

"Only an eyebrow," he explained.

She smiled serenely. "You should make a collection of those eyebrows. They must mount into the hundreds by this time. You could label them 'Characters of the Lady Lisa.'"

"The Souls of Lady Lisa."

The lady turned her head aside. "Your distinctions are too subtle," she said. Her eye fell on the Bambino, resting disgracefully on its wooden head. "Poor little figurine," she murmured, reaching a slender hand to draw it up. She straightened the tumbled finery absently. It slipped to her lap, and lay there. Her hands were idle, her eyes looking far into space.

The painter worked rapidly. She stirred slightly. "Sit still," he said, almost harshly.

She gave a quick, startled look. She glanced at the rigid little figure. She raised it for a minute. Her face grew inscrutable. Would she laugh or cry? He worked with hasty, snatched glances. Such a moment would not come again. A flitting crash startled him from the canvas. He looked up. The Bambino lay in a pathetic heap on the floor, scattered with fragments of a rare Venetian glass. She sat erect and imperious, looking with scorn at the wreck. Two great tears welled. They overflowed. The floods pressed behind them. She dropped her face in her hands. Before he could reach her she had darted from the chair. The mask of scorn was gone. She fled from him, from herself, blindly, stopping only when the wall of the studio intervened. She stood with her face buried in the drapery, her shoulders wrenched with sobs.

He approached her. He waited. The Bambino lay with its wooden face staring at the ceiling. It was a crisis for them all. The next move would determine everything. He must not risk too much, again. The picture—art—hung on her sobs. Lover—artist? He paused a second too long.

She turned toward him slowly, serenely. Her glance fell across him, level and tranquil. The traces of ignored tears lay in smiling drops on her face. The softened scorn played across it. "Shall we finish the sitting?" she asked, in a conventional voice.

He took up his brush uncertainly. She seated herself, gathering up the scattered work. For a few moments she sewed rapidly. Then the soft fabric fell to her lap. She sat looking before her, unconscious, except that her glance seemed to rest now and then on the fallen figure in its fragments of glass.

For two hours he worked feverishly, painting with swiftest skill and power. At times he caught his breath at the revelation in the face. He was too alert to be human. The artist forgot the woman. Faithfully, line by line, he laid bare her heart. She sat unmoved. When at last, from sheer weariness, the brush dropped from his hand, she stepped from the model-stand, and stood at his side. She looked at the canvas attentively. The inscrutable look of the painted face seemed but a faint reflex of the living one.

"You have succeeded well," she said at last. "We will omit the Bambino."

She moved slowly, graciously, toward the door, gathering the fragile sewing as she went. He started toward her—suddenly conscious of her power—a man again. A parting of the draperies arrested them. It was Salai, his face agitated, looking from the lady to the painter, inarticulate.

"The Signor"—he gasped—"his horse—they bring him—dead."

She stirred slightly where she stood. Her eyelids fell. "Go, Salai. Await your master's commands in the hall below."

She turned to the painter as the draperies closed. "I trust that you will make all use of our service, Signor Leonardo, in removing from the palace. The apartments will, I fear, be needed for relatives. They will come to honor the dead."

He stood for a moment stupefied, aghast at her control of practical, feminine detail; then moved toward her. "Lisa——"

She motioned toward the easel. "Payment for the picture will be sent you soon."

"The picture goes with me. It is not finished."

"It is well." She bowed mockingly. The little door swung noiselessly behind her. He was left alone with the portrait. It was looking sideways at the fallen Bambino amid the shattered fragments on the floor.

II

It was the French monarch. He fluttered restlessly about the studio, urbane, enthusiastic. He paused to finger some ingenious toy, to