“How would this do?”

He looked up, and as his gaze absorbed the picture before him an eager light of pure aesthetic satisfaction leaped into his eyes.

“Hold that!” he exclaimed quickly.  “Don’t move, please!” And, snatching up a stick of charcoal, he began to sketch rapidly with swift, sure strokes.

The pose she had assumed was matchless.  She was half-sitting, half-lying on the divan, the swathing draperies of her tunic outlining the wonderful modelling of her limbs.  The upper part of her body, twisting a little from the waist, was thrown back as she leaned upon one arm, hand pressed palm downward on the tiger-skin.  In her other hand she held a golden goblet, proffering the fatal draught, and her tilted face with its strange, enigmatic smile and narrowed lids held all the seductive entreaty and beguilement, and the deep, cynical knowledge of mankind, which are the garnerings of the Circes of this world.

At length Quarrington laid down his charcoal.

“It’s a splendid pose,” he said enthusiastically.  “That sideways bend you’ve given to your body—­it’s wonderful!  But can you stand it, do you think?  Of course I’ll give you rests as often as I can, but even so it will be a very trying pose to hold.”

Magda sat up, letting her feet slide slowly over the edge of the divan.  The “feet of Aurora” someone had once called them—­white and arched, with rosy-tipped toes curved like the petals of a flower.

“I can hold it for a good while, I think,” she answered evasively.

She did not tell him that even to her trained muscles the preservation of this particular pose, with its sinuous twist of the body, was likely to prove somewhat of a strain.  If the pose was so exactly what he wanted for his Circe, he should have it, whatever the cost to herself.

And without knowing it, yielding to an impulse which she hardly recognised, Magda had taken the first step along the pathway of service and sacrifice trodden by those who love.

“It seems as though you were destined to be the model of my two ‘turning-point’ pictures,” commented Quarrington some days later, during one of the intervals when Magda was taking a brief rest.  “It was the ‘Repose of Titania’ which first established my reputation, you know.”

“But this can’t be a ‘turning-point,’” objected Magda.  “When you’ve reached the top of the pinnacle of fame, so to speak, there isn’t any ’turning-point’—­unless”—­laughing—­“you’re going to turn round and climb down again!”

“There’s no top to the pinnacle of work—­of achievement,” he answered quietly.  “At least, there shouldn’t be.  One just goes on—­slipping back a bit, sometimes, then scrambling on again.”  His glance returned to the picture and Magda watched the ardour of the creative artist light itself anew in his eyes.  “That”—­he nodded towards the canvas—­“is going to be the best bit of work I’ve done.”

“What made you”—­she hesitated a moment—­“what made you choose Circe as the subject?”