“Oh, there you are!” he said.  “Sparker said you might be home for lunch and again you might not.  Please may I graft a meal?”

“Of course,” said Barbara, “but unless somebody else drops out of the skies we’ll be all alone.”

“Your father off on a case?”

“Yes,” said Barbara, as they went in, “he is operating, but in Wall Street.  And what’s the best news with you?”

“That spring’s come and summer’s coming.  When do your holidays begin?”

“That" said Barbara, with a certain air of triumph, “is a secret of the workshop.  Let’s sit in the dining-room.  It’s the only way to hurry lunch.”

To persons used to humbler ways of life Dr. Ferris’s dining-room would have proved too large and stately a place for purposes of intimate conversation.  Warriors and ladies looked down from the tapestried walls upon a small round table set with heavy silver and light glass for two, and having the effect, in the midst of an immense deep-blue rug, of a little island in a lake.  But Barbara and Wilmot Allen, well used to even larger and more stately rooms, faced each other across the white linen with its pattern of lotus-plants and swans, and chatted as comfortably and unconcernedly as two children in their nursery.

“As for holidays,” said Barbara, “I have a new model, Wilmot; a wonderful person, and that means work.  I may stay in town right through the summer.”

Allen sighed loudly, and on purpose.  “You make me tired,” he said.  “Bring a lump of clay down to Newport, and I’ll sit for you.”

Barbara affected to study his face critically.  Then she shook her head.  “My new model,” she explained, “has got the face of a fallen angel.  I think I can do it.  And if I can do it, why, I see all the good things of sculping coming my way.”

“An ordinary every-day angel face wouldn’t do?” her guest insinuated.  “I could go out and fall.”

“I don’t doubt it!” she returned somewhat crisply.  “I feel very sure that you could disgrace yourself without trouble and even with relish.  But it wouldn’t show in your face.  You see, you couldn’t really be wicked.”

“Couldn’t I though!” exclaimed the young man.  “A lot you know about it.  I could eat you up for one thing without turning a hair, and that would be wicked.”

“It wouldn’t,” Barbara laughed.  “It would be greedy.  My new model has the face of a man who has never stopped at anything that has stood in his way.  I fancy that he has murders up his sleeve and every other crime in the calendar.  And sometimes memory of them brings the most wonderful look of sorrow and remorse into his face, and at the same time he looks resolved to go on murdering and burning and sinning because he can’t get back to where he was when he began to fall, and must go on falling or perish.  Don’t you think that if I can cram that into a lump of clay I’ll make a reputation for myself?”