“Good-night.”

He retained her hand a moment, not meaning to—­not really intending to ask her what he did ask her.  And she raised her velvet eyes gravely: 

“Do you really want me?”

“Yes....  I don’t know why I never asked you before—­”

“It was absurd not to,” she said, impulsively; “I’d have gone anywhere with you the first day I ever knew you!  Besides, I dress well enough for you not to be ashamed of me.”

He began to laugh:  “Valerie, you funny little thing!  You funny, funny little thing!”

“Not in the slightest,” she retorted, sedately.  “I’m having a heavenly time for the first time in my life, and I have so wanted you to be part of it ... of course you are part of it,” she added, hastily—­“most of it!  I only meant that I—­I’d like to be a little in your other life—­have you enter mine, a little—­just so I can remember, in years to come, an evening with you now and then—­to see things going on around us—­to hear what you think of things that we see together....  Because, with you, I feel so divinely free, so unembarrassed, so entirely off my guard....  I don’t mean to say that I don’t have a splendid time with the others even when I have to watch them; I do—­and even the watching is fun—­”

The child-like audacity and laughing frankness, the confidence of her attitude toward him were delightfully refreshing.  He looked into her pretty, eager, engaging face, smiling, captivated.

“Valerie,” he said, “tell me something—­will you?”

“Yes, if I can.”

“I’m more or less of a painting machine.  I’ve made myself so, deliberately—­to the exclusion of other interests.  I wonder”—­he looked at her musingly—­“whether I’m carrying it too far for my own good.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I mean—­is there anything machine-made about my work?  Does it lack—­does it lack anything?”

“No!” she said, indignantly loyal.  “Why do you ask me that?”

“People—­some people say it does lack—­a certain quality.”

She said with supreme contempt:  “You must not believe them.  I also hear things—­and I know it is an unworthy jealousy that—­”

“What have you heard?” he interrupted.

“Absurdities.  I don’t wish even to think of them—­”

“I wish you to.  Please.  Such things are sometimes significant.”

“But—­is there any significance in what a few envious artists say—­or a few silly models—­”

“More significance in what they say than in a whole chorus of professional critics.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, astonished.

“Perfectly.  Without naming anybody or betraying any confidence, what have you heard in criticism of my work?  It’s from models and brother painters that the real truth comes—­usually distorted, half told, maliciously hinted sometimes—­but usually the germ of truth is to be found in what they say, however they may choose to say it.”