“Could you give me what time I might require?”

“I think so.”

“What I mean, Miss West, is this:  suppose that your figure is what I have an idea it is; could you give me a lot of time ahead?”

She remained silent so long that he had started to write, “probably unreliable,” under his notes; but, as his pencil began to move, her lips unclosed with, a low, breathless sound that became a ghost of a voice: 

“I will do what you require of me.  I meant to answer.”

“Do you mean that you are in a position to make a time contract with me?—­provided you prove to be what I need?”

She nodded uncertainly.

“I’m beginning the ceiling, lunettes, and panels for the Byzantine Theatre,” he added, sternly stroking his short mustache, “and under those circumstances I suppose you know what a contract between us means.”

She nodded again, but in her eyes was bewilderment, and in her heart, fear.

“Yes,” she managed to say, “I think I understand.”

“Very well.  I merely want to say that a model threw me down hard in the very middle of the Bimmington’s ball-room.  Max Schindler put on a show, and she put for the spot-light.  She’d better stay put,” he added grimly:  “she’ll never have another chance in your guild.”

Then the frown vanished, and the exceedingly engaging smile glimmered in his eyes: 

“You wouldn’t do such a thing as that to me,” he added; “would you, Miss West?”

“Oh, no,” she replied, not clearly comprehending the enormity of the Schindler recruit’s behaviour.

“And you’ll stand by me if our engagement goes through?”

“Yes, I—­will try to.”

“Good business!  Now, if you really are what I have an idea you are, I’ll know pretty quick whether I can use you for the Byzantine job.”  He rose, walked over to a pair of closed folding doors and opened them.  “You can undress in there,” he said.  “I think you will find everything you need.”

For a second she sat rigid, her black-gloved hands doubled, her eyes fastened on him as though fascinated.  He had already turned and sauntered over to one of several easels where he picked up the lump of charcoal in its silver foil.

The colour began to come back into her face—­swifter, more swiftly:  the vast blank window with its amber curtains stared at her; she lifted her tragic gaze and saw the sheet of glass above swimming in crystal light.  Through it clouds were dissolving in the bluest of skies; against it a spiderweb of pendant cords drooped from the high ceiling; and she saw the looming mystery of huge canvases beside which stepladders rose surmounted by little crow’s-nests where the graceful oval of palettes curved, tinted with scraped brilliancy.

“What a dreamer you are!” he called across the studio to her.  “The light is fine, now.  Hadn’t we better take advantage of it?”

She managed to find her footing; contrived to rise, to move with apparent self-possession toward the folding doors.