“Eight years in Europe for these,” she said in a dragging, morbid tone.  “And the letters on the table say I may do more, as the managers of shirt-waist factories might say to poor sewing-women when business is good.  And they pay piece-work prices just the same; and they want girls, not real girls, but things of bright paint like these!  Oh, they know what they want—­and they must be common in order to suit—­girls of just paint——­”

“And women of just flesh,” said Bedient.  “New York has shown me that about so many men!”

This startled her—­made her forget the sailor part.  It was particularly in the range of her mood that moment, and seemed finished.

“You’re going to feel a lot better, and soon,” he went on.  “It’s going to be much better than you think——­”

She drew suddenly back, hatred altering her features as a gust of wind on the face of a pool.

“You mean my marriage?” she asked, clearing her voice.

“I did not know that you were to be married,” he said quickly.  “I’m sorry not to have been clearer.  I meant the days to come through your work—­and nothing more.”

“A few have heard that I’m to be married,” she said.  “I thought you had heard.  As a matter of fact, it is not settled.  Oh, I have croaked to you terribly—­please forgive me!”

“That first night, I felt that we were old friends at once,” he added, rising and standing before her.  “The next day, you said it was just like a dream—­the night before—­and it was the same to me.  We went up to Miss Nettleton’s on the minute, just as if we were old playmates, and you had said, ’Let’s——­’...  So to-day, you have only told an old friend things—­trying things—­exactly as you should.  And I—­I think you’re brave to have done so well—­for so long.  I like New York better.  I’m coming again.  I like your pictures.  They are not just paint....  Hasn’t anyone told you—­don’t you know—­that it wouldn’t hurt you at all to do the others—­if your real pictures were just paint?  And since you are driven to do them, and don’t do them out of greed, nor through commonness, nor by habit, they can’t hurt your real work?  I really believe, too, that it is what you have done that will help you, and bring the better times, and not what anyone else will do....  I seem to be talking a great deal—­as I could not at all, except for the sense of an old friend’s authority, and to one I have found rare and admirable.  Believe me, I have very good eyes,—­New York has not printed its metal soul upon you.”

The Grey One had listened with bowed head.  A tall woman is at her loveliest, standing so.  She regarded his face searchingly for an instant, smiled, and turned away.

* * * * *

Bedient asked no one.  He did not know that the race Marguerite Grey was running was with American dollars, and that the sanctuary she meant was only a debtless spinsterhood.  He did not know that she dared not give up the Handel studio while she held a single hope of her vogue returning.  Only the great, who are permitted eccentricities, dare return to their garrets.  Nor did Bedient know that her marriage meant she had failed utterly, and that another must square her debts; that only out of the hate of defeat could she give herself for this price....  Still, Bedient knew quite enough.