In the Quarter

It is a naïve way models have of appropriating work in which, truly enough, they have no small share. They often speak of ``our pictures'' and ``our success.''

``How do you like it?'' asked the artist, absently.

``Good,'' – she shrugged her shoulders – ``but not truth.''

``Right again,'' murmured Gethryn.

``I prefer Dagnan,'' added the pretty critic.

``So do I – rather!'' laughed Gethryn.

``Or you,'' said the girl.

``Come, come,'' cried the young man, coloring with pleasure, ``you don't mean it, Elise!''

``I say what I mean – always,'' she replied, marching over to the pups and gathering them into her arms.

``I'm going to take a cigarette,'' she announced, presently.

``All right,'' said Gethryn, squeezing more paint on his palette, ``you'll find some mild ones on the bookcase.''

Elise gave the pups a little hug and kiss, and stepped lightly over to the bookcase. Then she lighted a cigarette and turned and surveyed herself in the mirror.

``I'm thinner than I was last year. What do you think?'' she demanded, studying her pretty figure in the glass.

``Perhaps a bit, but it's all the better. Those corsets simply ruined you as a model last year.''

Elise looked serious and shook her head.

``I do feel so much better without them. I won't wear them again.''

``No, you have a pretty, slender figure, and you don't want them. That's why I always get you when I can. I hate to draw or paint from a girl whose hips are all discolored with ugly red creases from her confounded corset.''

The girl glanced contentedly at her supple, clean-limbed figure, and then, with a laugh, jumped upon the model stand.

``It's not time,'' said Gethryn, ``you have five minutes yet.''

``Go on, all the same.'' And soon the rattle of the brushes alone broke the silence.

At last Gethryn rose and backed off with a sigh.

``How's that, Elise?'' he called.

She sprang down and stood looking over his shoulder.

``Now I'm like myself!'' she cried, frankly; ``it's delicious! But hurry and block in the legs, why don't you?''

``Next pose,'' said the young man, squeezing out more color.

And so the afternoon wore away, and at six o'clock Gethryn threw down his brushes with a long-drawn breath.

``That's all for today. Now, Elise, when can you give me the next pose? I don't want a week at a time on this; I only want a day now and then.''

The model went over to her dress and rummaged about in the pockets.

``Here,'' she said, handing him a notebook and diary.

He selected a date, and wrote his name and the hour.

``Good,'' said the girl, reading it; and replacing the book, picked up her stockings and slowly began to dress.

Gethryn lay back on the lounge, thoroughly tired out. Elise was humming a Normandy fishing song. When, at last, she stood up and drew on her gloves, he had fallen into a light sleep.

She stepped softly over to the lounge and listened to the quiet breathing of the young man.

``How handsome – and how good he is!'' she murmured, wistfully.

She opened the door very gently.

``So different, so different from the rest!'' she sighed, and noiselessly went her way.

Eight

Although the sound of the closing door was hardly perceptible, it was enough to wake Gethryn.

``Elise!'' he called, starting up, ``Elise!''

But the girl was beyond earshot.

``And she went away without her money, too; I'll drop around tomorrow and leave it; she may need it,'' he muttered, rubbing his eyes and staring at the door.

It was dinner time, and past, but he had little appetite.

``I'll just have something here,'' he said to himself, and catching up his hat ran down stairs. In twenty minutes he was back with eggs, butter, bread, a paté, a bottle of wine and a can of sardines. The spirit lamp was lighted and the table deftly spread.

``I'll have a cup of tea, too,'' he thought, shaking the blue tea canister, and then, touching a match to the well-filled grate, soon had the kettle fizzling and spluttering merrily.

The wind had blown up cold from the east and the young man shivered as he closed and fastened the windows. Then he sat down, his chin on his hands, and gazed into the glowing grate. Mrs Gummidge, who had smelled the sardines, came rubbing up against his legs, uttering a soft mew from sheer force of habit. She was not hungry – in fact, Gethryn knew that the concierge, whose duty it was to feed all the creatures, overdid it from pure kindness of heart – at Gethryn's expense.

``Gummidge, you're stuffed up to your eyes, aren't you?'' he said.

At the sound of his voice the cat hoisted her tail, and began to march in narrowing circles about her master's chair, making gentle observations in the cat language.

Gethryn placed a bit of sardine on a fork and held it out, but the little humbug merely sniffed at it daintily, and then rubbed against her master's hand.

He laughed and tossed the bit of fish into the fire, where it spluttered and blazed until the parrot woke up with a croak of annoyance. Gethryn watched the kettle in silence.

Faces he could never see among the coals, but many a time he had constructed animals and reptiles from the embers, and just now he fancied he could see a resemblance to a shark among the bits of blazing coal.