The artist had, so far, seen Sibyl only in her mountain costume of soft brown,—­made for rough contact with rocks and underbrush,—­with felt hat to match, and high, laced boots, fit for climbing.  She was dressed, now, as Conrad Lagrange had seen her that first time in the garden, when he was hiding from Louise Taine.  The man at the window drew a little back, with a low exclamation of pleased surprise and wonder.  Was that lovely creature there among the roses his girl comrade of the hills?  The Sibyl Andres he had known—­in the short skirt and high boots of her mountain garb—­was a winsome, fanciful, sometimes serious, sometimes wayward, maiden.  This Sibyl Andres, gowned in clinging white, was a slender, gracefully tall, and beautifully developed woman.

Slowly, she came toward the studio end of the garden; pausing here and there to bend over the flowers as though in loving, tender greeting; singing, the while, her low-voiced melody; unafraid of the sunshine that enveloped her in a golden flood, undisturbed by the careless fingers of the wind that caressed her hair.  A girl of the clean out-of-doors, she belonged among the roses, even as she had been at home among the pines and oaks of the mountains.  The artist, fascinated by the lovely scene, stood as though fearing to move, lest the vision vanish.

Then, looking up, she saw him, and stretched out her hands in a gesture of greeting, with a laugh of pleasure.

“Don’t move, don’t move!” he called impulsively.  “Hold the pose—­please hold it!  I want you just as you are!”

The girl, amused at his tragic earnestness, and at the manner of his welcome, understood that the zeal of the artist had brushed aside the polite formalities of the man; and, as unaffectedly natural as she did everything, gave herself to his mood.

Dragging his easel with the blank canvas upon it across the studio, he cried out, again, “Don’t move, please don’t move!” and began working.  He was as one beside himself, so wholly absorbed was he in translating into the terms of color and line, the loveliness purity and truth that was expressed by the personality of the girl as she stood among the flowers.  “If I can get it!  If I can only get it!” he exclaimed again and again, with a kind of savage earnestness, as he worked.

All his years of careful training, all his studiously acquired skill, all his mastery of the mechanics of his craft, came to him, now, without conscious effort—­obedient to his purpose.  Here was no thoughtful straining to remember the laws of composition, and perspective, and harmony.  Here was no skillful evading of the truth he saw.  So freely, so surely, he worked, he scarcely knew he painted.  Forgetting self, as he was unconscious of his technic, he worked as the birds sing, as the bees toil, as the deer runs.  Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as the roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl stood.

Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andres came singing through the orange grove, to stand in the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands outstretched in greeting.  Every day, Aaron King waited her coming—­sitting before his easel, palette and brush in hand.  Each day, he worked as he had worked that first day—­with no thought for anything save for his picture.