A few days later Sylvia broke into Joan’s revery by the smouldering fire.  It was a gray, cold day and Joan’s spirits were at low tide.

She had not been successful in any venture as yet, and so vivid was her imagination, so sincere her determination to play fair, that starvation and early death seemed the most likely objects on her mental horizon.  She had eliminated Doris and Nancy as life-preservers—­they figured only as blessed memories in a past that was not yet regretted but which was fast fading into a black present.

“Joan, my darling, suppose you come to the rescue.  My model has gone back on me—­let me see you dance!  My model had sand bags on her feet yesterday, anyhow, and my beautiful figure looks as if it had the beginnings of paralysis.”

Joan sprang up.  Instantly she was aglow and trembling with delight.

“Here, take this balloon,” ordered Sylvia, “it is still gassy enough to float—­it’s a bubble, you know.”

Through the room Joan floated after the elusive ball.  Sylvia watched her with a light breaking over her own face.

“Great, great!” she cried from her corner, “go it, Joan, you’re the real thing!”

Joan was not listening.  What her eyes saw were the figures in the fountain of the sunken room.  She was one of them again—­the story was coming true!  It was no longer a golden balloon she was touching, fondling, reaching for, tossing—­it was sparkling water, and birds seemed singing in the big north studio.

At last it was over.  On Sylvia’s canvas the figure appeared to have undergone a marvellous change by a few rapid and bewitched strokes.  The sand-bag impression had been removed—­the figure was alive!

“Syl, dear, you are wonderful!”

Joan came and stood close.  “What have you done to it?”

“Put you in it.  Or,” here Sylvia tossed her palette aside and caught Joan by the shoulders, “you’ve put yourself in me.  I’ve a line on your opportunity, Joan, it came to me like a flash of inspiration.  I hope you are game.”

“I’m game, all right,” Joan returned, quietly.  She was thinking of her next visit to the bank.

“Dress your prettiest, my lamb.  Look success from head to foot and then go to the address I’ll give you.  I have a friend, Elspeth Gordon, who is opening a tea room.  She may not think you necessary to her scheme of things, she’s Scotch and terribly thrifty, with a dash of nearness, but you tell her that I say you’ll be the making of her.”

Joan laughed and darted away to array herself in her best.

“What am I supposed to do there?” she asked.  Her brightness and gaiety had returned.

“Oh! any one of your accomplishments.  Of course it was merely a matter of making things jibe.  Elspeth only telephoned about the tea room this morning.”

“You mean I am to wait on tables or cook?” asked Joan, somewhat daunted.

“Lord, child, no!  Here, wait.  On second thought, I’ll go with you.  I might have known you couldn’t put it over.  Watch me!”