“But what are you going to do with her?”

“Get her to pose for me, if she will.”

“Anything else?”

“One never knows in life,” I answered smiling.

Morley regarded me thoughtfully.

“You artists do manage to have a good time.”

“You could have just the same if you chose,” I said.

“No, I don’t think I could somehow,” he answered slowly.  “I am not so devilishly good-looking as you are, for one thing.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied; “and does that make much difference with women, do you think?  Isn’t it rather a passionate responsiveness, a go-aheadness, that they like?”

“Yes, I think it is, but then that’s it, you’ve got that.  I don’t think I have.  I don’t seem to want the things, to see anything in them, as you do.”

I laughed outright.  We were walking slowly down one of the gold, light-filled streets towards the church now, and everything about us seemed vibrating in the dazzling heat.

“If you don’t want them I should think it’s all right.”  I said.

“No, it isn’t,” returned my companion gravely.  “You want a thing very much and you get it, and have no end of fun.  I don’t want it and don’t get it, and don’t have the fun.  So it makes life very dull.”

“Well, I am very jolly,” I admitted contentedly.  “I think really, artists—­people with the artist’s brain—­do enjoy everything tremendously.  They have such a much wider field of desires, as you say; and fewer limitations.  They ‘weave the web Desire,’ as Swinburne says, ‘to snare the bird Delight.’”

“They get into a mess sometimes,” said Morley sulkily; “as you will with that girl if you don’t look out.  Here we are at the church.  There’s a very fine picture inside; you’d like to see it, I expect.”

We turned into the church and rested on the chairs for a few minutes, enjoying the cool dark interior.

At six o’clock exactly I was in the little mud-yard again, before the tea-shop; having sent Morley off to his dinner on board.  I felt elated:  all my pulses were beating merrily.  I was keenly alive.  Morley was right in what he said.  An artist is Nature’s pet, and she has mixed all his blood with joy.  Natural, instinctive joy, swamped occasionally by melancholy, but always there surging up anew.  Joy in himself—­joy in his powers—­joy in life.

I knocked as arranged, and Suzee herself let me in.  She had been burning spice, apparently, before one of the idols that stood in each corner of the tea-shop; for the whole place smelt of it.

“What have you been doing?” I said.  “Holding service here?”

“Only burning spice-spills to chase away the evil spirits,” replied Suzee.

“Are there any here?” I inquired.

“They always come in with the white foreign devils,” she returned with engaging frankness.

I laughed.

“Well, Suzee, you are unkind,” I expostulated.  “Is that how you think of me?”