He had sufficient self-control, and was mentally agile enough to come down upon his feet.  Rising, he said, quietly:  “If you will be my muse, as far as many other claims upon your time and thoughts permit, I shall be very grateful.  I have observed that you have a good eye for harmony in color, and, what is best of all, I have induced you to be very frank.  See how much you have helped me.  In brief—­Bless me! how long have you been here?”

He pulled out his watch in comic dismay, and held it towards her.  “No lunch for us to-day,” he concluded, ruefully.

“Well,” exclaimed Marian, laughing, “this is the first symptom I have ever had of being an artist.  It was quite natural that you should forget the needs of sublunary mortals, but that I should do so must prove the existence of an undeveloped trait.  I could become quite absorbed in art if I could look on and see its wonders like a child.  You must come home with me and take your chance.  If lunch is over, we’ll forage.”

He laughingly shouldered his apparatus, and walked by her side through the June sunshine and shade, she in the main keeping up the conversation.  At last he said, rather abruptly:  “Miss Vosburgh, you do not look on like a child,—­rather, with more intelligence than very many society girls possess; and—­will you forgive me?—­you defend yourself like a genuine American woman.  I have lived abroad, you know, and have learned how to value such women.  I wish you to know how much I respect you, how truly I appreciate you, and how grateful and honored I shall feel if you will be simply a frank, kind friend.  You made use of the expression ’How shall I make you understand?’ So I now use it, and suggest what I mean by a question,—­Is there not something in a man’s nature which enables him to do better if some woman, in whom he believes, shows that she cares?”

“I should be glad if this were true of some men,” she said, gently, “because I do care.  I’ll be frank, too.  Nothing would give me a more delicious sense of power than to feel that in ways I scarcely understood I was inciting my friends to make more of themselves than they would if they did not know me.  If I cannot do a little of what you suggest, of what account am I to my friends?”

“Your friends can serve a useful purpose by amusing you.”

“Then the reverse is true, and I am merely amusing to my friends.  Is that the gist of your fine words, after all?” and her face flushed as she asked the question.

“No, it is not true, Miss Vosburgh.  You have the power of entertaining your friends abundantly, but you could make me a better artist, and that with me would mean a better man, if you took a genuine interest in my efforts.”

“I shall test the truth of your words,” was her smiling response.  “Meanwhile you can teach me to understand art better, so that I shall know what I am talking about.”  Then she changed the subject.

CHAPTER IX.