“How clever of you,” said Barbara.  “There was a man coming from Schlemmer’s to put on some glass knobs for me.  Bubbles has brought him in by the back stairs.”

The faint crunching sound of the screw going into the wood ceased.  There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” said Barbara.

Bubbles appeared in the opening.  “We’re all through in here.”

It did not at once strike Barbara that to have finished his work in the next room the man from Schlemmer’s must have arrived upon the scene very much earlier than he had promised.  And she could not by any possibility have guessed that Bubbles, in a state of nervous alarm, had slipped down the back stairs and run all the way to the hardware store to fetch him.

“He may as well begin in here, then,” she said; “I’m through for this morning.”  And she turned to the beggar.  “To-morrow—­at the same time?”

He nodded briefly, but did not at once turn to go.  He wished, it seemed, to have a good look at the young workman who now followed Bubbles into the studio.  And so did Barbara, the moment she saw him.

To her critical eye he was quite the best-looking young man she had ever seen “in the world or out of it.”  He was tall, broad, round-necked, narrow in the hips, and of a fine brown coloring.  He carried with easy grace a strong, well-massed head, to which the close adherence of the ears, and the shortness of the dark-brown shiny hair, gave an effect of high civilization and finish.  Brown, level eyes, neither hard nor soft, but of a twinkling habit, a nose straight, thick, finely chiselled, an emphatic chin, and a large mouth of extraordinary sweetness, were not lost upon Barbara, but that which served most to arrest her attention was that resemblance which she at once perceived to exist between the young workman and the legless beggar.  Yet between Bubbles, who also resembled Blizzard in her eyes or in her imagination, and the youth from the hardware store, she was unable, swiftly comparing them, to find anything in common.  To the one nature had denied even full growth and development; upon the other she had lavished muscle, blood, and bone.  The small boy had a ragged, peaked, pathetic face, hair that sprouted every which way, the eyes of an invalid, ears of unequal size and different shapes, that stuck straight out from his head—­all the stampings, in short, of street-birth and gutter-raising.  The workman had an efficient, commanding look, the easy, strong motions of an athlete trained and proved.  Neither in the least resembled the other, yet both resembled the legless beggar, who in turn resembled Satan after the fall—­and Barbara was inclined to laugh.

“I am so obsessed with one man’s face,” she thought, “that I see something of it in all other faces.”

“Good-morning, Harry.”  It was the beggar’s voice, cool, and perhaps a little insolent.

“Good-morning, Blizzard.”  The young man nodded curtly and turned to Barbara.  “Do you wish all the knobs changed?”