She came and sat beside me, but not very close, with her knees raised and her smooth lissom little hands clasped round them.  Her almond eyes grew almost round with curiosity.  I had brought with me a small portfolio of some of my sketches with the object of introducing the subject of her posing for me.  I opened it and drew out the topmost sketch.  It was the figure of a young Italian girl lying on a green bank beneath some vines.  She was not wholly undraped, but most of her attire was on the bank beside her, and the rest was of a transparent gauzy nature suited to the heat suggested in the sunlit picture.

The moment Suzee’s eyes fell upon it she gave a shriek of dismay and covered her face with her hands.  Over any portion I could still see of it spread the Eastern’s equivalent of a blush:  a sort of dull heavy red that seems to thicken the tissues.

“What is the matter?” I asked, surveying her in surprise.  There was nothing in the picture which would cause the least embarrassment to any English girl.

“Oh, Treevor, it is dreadful to look at things like that,” she exclaimed, moving her fingers before her face and looking at me with one eye through them.  Then she made some rapid passes over her head, as if to ward off the evil spirits I had conjured up.

I laughed.

“You may think so, Suzee,” I said; “but in our country, and many others, these ‘things,’ as you call them, are not only very much looked at, but also admired, and bought and sold for great sums.  What do you see so very bad in it?”

Suzee ventured to peer through her fingers with both eyes at the fearful object.

“Dreadful!” she exclaimed again, quickly shutting her fingers.  “It is a very bad woman, is it not?”

“No,” I said, somewhat nettled; “certainly not.  This was quite a respectable girl.  I have quantities of these portraits and sketches.  Look here,” and I opened the portfolio and spread out several pictures on the rug.

Suzee drew herself together, tightly pursed up her and looked down at them with alarm,—­as if I had let loose a number of snakes.

“They are very, very wicked things,” she said, primly as a dissenting minister’s wife; and lowered her eyelids till the lashes lay like black silk on the cheeks.

I gathered the offending sketches together and pushed them back under cover.

“I wanted you to pose for me,” I said, “that I might have your picture, too; but I expect you won’t do so for me?”

“I!  I!” said Suzee, with virtuous indignation, “be put on paper like that?  I would die first.”  Her face had thickened all over as the blood went into it.  Her eyes looked stormy, alluring.

I leant towards her suddenly as we sat side by side, put my arms round her waist, drew her to me, and pressed my lips on the ridiculous little screwed-up mouth, with a sudden access of passion that left her breathless.

“You are a horrid little humbug, and goose, and prude,” I said, laughing, as I released her.  “What do you think of letting me kiss you like that, then?  Is that wrong?”