“You see we painters know what we want and we know where to apply for it.  But if you all go wandering over studio buildings in search of engagements, we won’t have any leisure to employ you because it will take all our time to answer the bell.  And it will end by our not answering it at all.  And that’s why it is fit and proper for good little models to remain chez eux.”

He had achieved a point to his pencil.  Now he opened his model book, looked up at her with his absent smile, and remained looking.

“Aren’t you going to remove your veil?”

“Oh—­I beg your pardon!” Slender gloved fingers flew up, were nervously busy a moment.  She removed her veil and sat as though awaiting his comment.  None came.

After a moment’s pause she said:  “Did you wish—­my name and address?”

He nodded, still looking intently at her.

“Miss West,” she said, calmly.  He wrote it down.

“Is that all?  Just ’Miss West’?”

“Valerie West—­if that is custom—­necessary.”

He wrote “Valerie West”; and, as she gave it to him, he noted her address.

“Head and shoulders?” he asked, quietly.

“Yes,” very confidently.

“Figure?”

“Yes,”—­less confidently.

“Draped or undraped?”

When he looked up again, for an instant he thought her skin even whiter than it had been; perhaps not, for, except the vivid lips and a carnation tint in the cheeks, the snowy beauty of her face and neck had already preoccupied him.

“Do you pose undraped?” he repeated, interested.

“I—­expect to do—­what is—­required of—­models.”

“Sensible,” he commented, noting the detail in his book.  “Now, Miss West, for whom have you recently posed?”

And, as she made no reply, he looked up amiably, balancing his pencil in his hand and repeating the question.

“Is it necessary to—­tell you?”

“Not at all.  One usually asks that question, probably because you models are always so everlastingly anxious to tell us—­particularly when the men for whom you have posed are more famous than the poor devil who offers you an engagement.”

There was something very good humoured in his smile, and she strove to smile, too, but her calmness was now all forced, and her heart was beating very fast, and her black-gloved fingers were closing and doubling till the hands that rested on the arms of the gilded antique chair lay tightly clenched.

He was leisurely writing in his note book under her name: 

“Height, medium; eyes, a dark brown; hair, thick, lustrous, and brown; head, unusually beautiful; throat and neck, perfect—­”

He stopped writing and lifted his eyes: 

“How much of your time is taken ahead, I wonder?”

“What?”

“How many engagements have you?  Is your time all cut up—­as I fancy it is?”

“N-no.”