“You are early, to-day,” said Aaron King, as he escorted Mrs. Taine to the studio.

Just inside the door, she turned impulsively to face him—­standing close, her beautifully groomed and voluptuous body instinct with the lure of her sex, her too perfect features slightly flushed, and her eyes submissively downcast.  “And have you forgotten that this is the last time I can come?” she asked in a low tone.

“Surely not”—­he returned calmly—­“you are coming to-morrow, with the others, aren’t you?” Her husband with James Rutlidge and Louise Taine were invited for the next day, to view the portrait.

“Oh, but that will be so different!” She loosed the wrap she wore, and threw it aside with an indescribable familiar gesture.  “You don’t realize what these hours have meant to me—­how could you?  You do not live in my world.  Your world is—­is so different You do not know—­you do not know.”  With a sudden burst of passion, she added, “The world that I live in is hell; and this—­this—­oh, it has been heavenly!”

Her words, her voice, the poise of her figure, the gesture with outstretched arms—­it was all so nearly an invitation, so nearly a surrender of herself to him, that the man started forward impulsively.  For the moment he forgot his work—­he forgot everything—­he was conscious only of the woman who stood before him.  But even as the light of triumph blazed up in the woman’s eyes, the man halted,—­drew back; and his face was turned from her as he listened to the sweetly appealing message of the gentle spirit that made itself felt in the music of that hidden violin.  It was as though, in truth, the mountains, themselves,—­from their calm heights so remote from the little world wherein men live their baser tragedies,—­watched over him.  “Don’t you think we had better proceed with our work?” he said calmly.

The light in the woman’s eyes changed to anger which she turned away to hide.  Without replying, she went to her place and assumed the pose; and, as she had watched him day after day when his eyes were upon the canvas, she watched him now.  Since that first day, when she had questioned him about the unseen musician, they had not mentioned the subject, although—­as was inevitable under the circumstances—­their intimacy had grown.  But not once had he turned from his work in that listening attitude, or looked from the window as though half-expecting some one, without her noting it.  And, always, her eyes had flashed with resentment, which she had promptly concealed when the painter, again turning to his easel, had looked from his canvas to her face.

Scarcely was the artist well started in his work, that afternoon, when the music ceased.  Presently, Mrs. Taine broke her watchful silence, with the quite casual remark; “Your musical neighbor is still unknown to you, I suppose?”

“Yes,”—­he answered smiling, as though more to himself than at her,—­“we have never tried to make her acquaintance.”