“You are not supposed to know that I am doing anything,” she retorted.  “You have been peeking again.”

“You were so still—­I feared you had vanished,” he laughed.  “If you’ll keep talking to me, I’ll know you are there, and will be good.”

“Sure it won’t bother?”

“Sure,” he answered.

“Well, then, you talk to me, and I’ll answer.”

“I have a confession to make,” he said, carefully studying the gray tones of the alder trunk beyond the gray boulder.

“A confession?”

“Yes, I want to get it over—­so it won’t bother me.”

“Something about me?”

“Yes.”

“Why, that’s what I am trying so hard to make you keep your eyes on your work for—­because I have to make a confession to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes—­don’t look around, please.”

“But what under the sun can you have to confess to me?”

“You started yours first,” she answered.  “Go on.  Maybe it will make it easier for me.”

Studiously keeping his eyes upon his canvas, he told her how he had watched her from the cedar thicket.  When he had finished,—­and she was silent,—­he thought that she was angry, and turned about—­expecting to see her gathering up her things to go.

She was struggling to suppress her laughter.  At the look of surprise on his face, she burst forth in such a gale of merriment that the little glade was filled with the music of her glee; while, in spite of himself, the painter joined.

“Oh!” she cried, “but that is funny!  I am glad, glad!”

“Now, what do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“Why—­why—­that’s exactly what I was trying to get courage enough to confess to you!” she gasped.  And then she told him how she had spied upon him from the arbor in the rose garden; and how, in his absence, she had visited his studio.

“But how in the world did you get in?  The place was always locked, when I was away.”

“Oh,” she said quaintly, “there was a good genie who let me in through the keyhole.  I didn’t meddle with anything, you know—­I just looked at the beautiful room where you work.  And I didn’t glance, even, at the picture on the easel.  The genie told me you wouldn’t like that.  I would not have drawn the curtain anyway, even if I hadn’t been told.  At least, I don’t think I would—­but perhaps I might—­I can’t always tell what I’m going to do, you know.”

Suddenly, the artist remembered finding the studio door open with Conrad Lagrange’s key in the lock, and how the novelist had berated himself with such exaggerated vehemence; and, in a flash, came the thought of James Rutlidge’s visit, that afternoon, and of his strange manner and insinuating remarks.

“I think I know the name of your good genie,” said the painter, facing the girl, seriously.  “But tell me, did no one disturb you while you were in the studio?”