Blizzard considered, and then shook his head.  “No,” he said, “it couldn’t be the same.  It may have stretched you on the hot grid now and then, but between times of remorse you’ve had long, long stretches of success and happiness.  I haven’t.  I have burned in hell fires from that day to this.”

“I told you on that day,” said the surgeon, “that if there was ever anything under heaven that I could do for you, I would do it.  You’ve never called upon me for anything—­money—­or service.”

“I’ve not forgotten,” said Blizzard, “and some day I may hold you to your word.  Right here and now I will ask something of you—­an absolutely truthful answer to a question.  Do you hate me?”

Dr. Ferris turned the question over in his conscience, and presently said:  “I am sorry.  Yes.”

“Thank you,” said Blizzard, who was not in the least disturbed.  “I’ve often wondered, and even, putting a hypothetical case, thrashed the matter out with my friends.  You would hate me.  It’s thoroughly human.  With me, for instance—­I feel non-committal about a man.  I decide to injure him.  I do so. And then I hate him.  Now, if you have any message for Miss Barbara—­or perhaps you came to see the bust.  I will call Bubbles.  He and Miss Barbara are the only persons allowed to touch the cloths.  I think she’d let me uncover the thing, but, as you and I know so well, I am not tall enough.”

“My business with my daughter,” said Dr. Ferris, “concerned you.”

Blizzard chuckled.  “Her friends,” said he, “have been at you to interfere.  They have persuaded you that her model should be persona non grata in the best studios.  They have, in short, begged you to take me by the scruff of the neck and kick me out into the gutter where I belong.  Well, kick me.  You know as well as I do, that I can’t kick back.”

“You hurt me very much,” said Dr. Ferris simply, “if that is any pleasure to you.”

“It is,” said Blizzard.

“What your intuition has told you,” continued Barbara’s father, “is the truth.  I had made up my mind to interfere.”

“Well, why should you?”

“I have heard terrible things about you, Mr. Blizzard.”

“That I have done things which the world regards as terrible is true,” returned the legless man imperturbably.  “What of it?  Haven’t you?”

Dr. Ferris turned away and slowly paced the length of the studio and back.  “I owe you,” he then said, “anything you choose to ask.  But that is not the whole of my obligation to this world as I see it.”

“You will oblige me,” said Blizzard, “by spitting out the moral homily into which you are trying to get your teeth.  It is very simple.  I do not wish to be sent away.  I ask you not to send me.  If your statement that you owe me anything I choose to ask amounts to two pins’ worth, I think that I shall continue to pose for your daughter as long as she needs me.”