Blizzard was an acute student of human nature.  And a certain softening in Barbara’s manner toward him was proof that she had learned his story from her father, and no longer regarded him as a stranger off the streets, but as a human being definitely connected with her outlook upon life.  Still, the suggestion that their relations had changed did not come from him, for he knew that pity or sympathy given by request lacks the potency of that which is spontaneously offered.  So he held his peace in order that Barbara might be the first to speak, and during those days his heart became filled with mad hopes for the future.

Upon one thing he was determined, that when in the course of events Barbara should touch upon her father’s criminal mistake, he would conceal, as something precious from a thief, the hatred and vengefulness that were in him, and unroll for her benefit a character noble and forgiving.  He was content, or appeared content, day after day, for a number of hours, to be with her, and to play the hypocrite so ably as to defy detection.

And Barbara, knowing how the man had been abused, guessing how he must have suffered, and still suffered, came to look upon him, not indeed as upon a person wholly noble, but as upon one who, with an impulse in the right direction, had in him possibilities of great nobility.

Just as a fine motor-car, perfect in mechanism, punctures a tire and is stalled by the side of the road, so works of genius like Barbara’s head of Blizzard do not progress in one swift rush from start to finish.  There were whole mornings during which it seemed that things went backward instead of forward, and when she was so discouraged that, had it not been for the legless man’s almost fiery confidence in her ability to overcome all obstacles, she must have taken a hammer and pounded her fine sketch back into the lump of clay from which it had been evolved.

Blizzard’s eyes had undergone a most thorough schooling.  They had learned, to the flicker of an eyelid, when Barbara was going to look their way, and at such times were careful not to meet her eyes.  When, however, they knew her to be intent for a period upon the work and not the model, they studied her always with zest, and always with more and more understanding.

Suddenly, one day, after he had been sitting motionless for half an hour, the beggar broke his pose.

“Please don’t,” she said.  “I’m not through.”

In his eyes, soft and full of understanding, there was a gentle, if masterful, smiling.  “Yes, you are,” he said, “for now.  I haven’t watched you at work all these mornings without learning something about the way you go at it.  Do you know what a blind alley is?”

“Yes,” she said petulantly, “and I’m in one.”

“Quite so,” said Blizzard.  “And you’re not taking the right way out.  First you tried to climb up the house on the right, then the house on the left, and when I interrupted you, you were making a sixth effort to shin up the lightning-rod of the house that blocks the alley.”