joke, isn't it? Probably I shall run away with a good-looking chauffeur with kinky hair, regular teeth, a straight nose and a vocabulary which would put even George Ade to shame. Or, I may fall in love with the matinée idol and fly off with him in a motor-car at midnight, and so be in the fashion. My romantic-minded companion, Mrs. Lester Keene, who lives on novels, cherishes the idea that I'm going to elope with you."

"My God!" cried York. "If only such a thing could come true!"

The passion in the man's voice, the sudden flame in his eyes and the sort of picturesque hunger which suddenly pervaded him filled the girl with interest. She had always regarded him as a sort of Shaw play,—a mixture of easy cynicism, self-conscious cleverness and an obvious pose. She had been leading a quiet life since the season in town had ended, riding and playing tennis and swimming in the pool. She had had no opportunity of trying her powers upon any man who had been worth while. Her parents' friends were all rather pompous, responsible people who talked politics gravely and whose wealth had taken the sting of joy and effort out of life. It was good to be able to play with fire again. It exercised her wits. So she seized the opportunity of leading on this handsome person with whom so many married women had been in love, to see what he would do.

"Is that how you feel?" she asked, instinctively going into the light so that her slim triumphant beauty and bewitching youth should be in full challenging view.

York lost his head. His inherent conceit led him to believe that there was encouragement in the girl's voice and attitude. "You know it is. You know that ever since you came here to sit for me, from the very first instant that I caught sight of you I've been drunk with love. You've revolutionized my life—almost ruined me as painter—because to paint any other woman is sacrilege." He caught her hands and kissed them hotly.

It was all very well done. His words carried most amazing sincerity. His attitude was extremely graceful, and his simulated passion lent a temporary youthfulness to his face and tall, tightly compressed figure. He managed to look the complete lover. The stage had lost a great actor in him.

Beatrix rescued her hands and stood up very straight. This transpontine outburst was foolish. She had merely hoped for a witty passage of arms. "My dear Mr. York," she said, "you and I are very good friends. Please don't run away with the idea that I'm a young married woman in search of adventure."

York was angry. He knew that he had made a fool of himself. He hated to look a fool at any time and he was not sufficiently master of himself to recover his ground by making a well-turned apology. "Women don't come here to be friends," he said thickly. "They certainly don't come alone at this time of night to talk ethics. You've no right to snub me—to lead me on and then cover me with ice-cold water. I'm not the man to stand that sort of thing."

"Your cigarettes are very nice," said Beatrix. "May I have another?"

He held out the box and struck a match. He stood so close to the girl that the fragrance of her hair and the gleam of her white flesh went to his brain. All the sensuality of the man was churned up and stirred and his veneer fell from him like dry plaster. He really did forget for the moment that she was the daughter of one of America's richest men and was not simply the most exquisite young thing that he had ever seen during his long career. He bent down and put his lips on her shoulder, with a hoarse, inarticulate murmur. He had always been very successful in his love-making. The type of woman with whom he came most in contact couldn't resist the primeval. He must have imagined that this unbridled and daring outbreak would carry the girl off her feet. It had happened before.

He was mistaken. Beatrix was as completely mistress of herself as though she were talking to a hairdresser.

"That's a pity," she said. "I'm afraid it puts an end to my coming here. I'm sorry, because I liked the atmosphere of your studio and it broke the monotony of my gilded exclusiveness to indulge in this sort of mild Bohemianism, although I thought that you were clever. Will you please let me have my wrap?"

"Do you mean that?"

"Yes."

York obeyed. He saw that he had completely spoiled his very remote chance. Also it was obvious that his name would not now be included among Mrs. Vanderdyke's list of guests. "You fool!" he said to himself. "You damned infernal fool. This girl's an aristocrat—an autocrat—a hot-house plant. You've treated her like the wife of a Wall Street broker from the Middle West." He put the wrap about the girl's shoulders and stood back endeavoring to assume a dignity that he did not feel.

That kiss on her shoulder was like the touch of a slug on the petal of a rose. Beatrix resented it from the bottom of her soul, but her training, her breeding and her inherent pluck gave her the power to hide her feelings and maintain an air of undisturbed indifference. Her knowledge of men, already great, made her very well aware of the fact that the least show of temper might bring about a most unpleasant scuffle. She dropped her cigarette into a silver bowl. "I shall look forward to seeing your panels in the new theatre with great interest," she said. "Will you come down with me to the car?"

Realizing that he was no match for this young privileged person and cowed by her superbly unconscious sense of quality, York led the way across his elaborate studio in which suits of armor gleamed dully and massive pieces of oak reflected the light, to the door. He rang the bell of the elevator and stood silently waiting for it to come up. Nothing else was said, except by Beatrix, who gave him the one cool word "Good-bye," as he shut the door of the limousine.

York's man-servant, of whom he was so inordinately proud, had gone to bed. Otherwise, he would have been astonished to hear the sound of smashing china. The portrait painter took it out on a Dresden bowl which, in his impotent rage, he dashed with a characteristically coarse oath to the polished floor of the room in which most of his love episodes had ended with peculiar success.

II

The Vanderdyke house on Fifth Avenue faced the Park.

It aroused the admiration of most people not because it was an accurate reproduction of the famous De la Rochefoucauld mansion in Paris, but because on one side of it enough space upon which to build a high apartment house was given up to a stilted garden behind a high arrangement of wrought iron. It did not require a trained real-estate mind to know how valuable was such "waste" ground.

The suite of rooms belonging to Beatrix overlooked this large, square patch, with its well-nursed lawn, its elaborate stonework and its particular sparrows. In the spring, what appeared to be the same tulips suddenly and regularly appeared, standing erect in exact circles, and lilacs broke into almost regal bloom every year about the time that the family left town. A line of balloon-shaped bay trees always stood on the terrace and, whatever the weather, a nude maiden of mature charms watched over a marble fountain in an attitude of resentful modesty.

When her windows were open, as