Part 26 (1/2)

”Well,” she drawled at last, ”what did you think of it?”

”Think of it?” said Lewis. ”There were three times when I wanted to shout, 'Hold that pose!' After that--well, after that my brain stopped working.”

”Do you mean it?” asked Vi.

”Mean what?”

”About wanting me to hold a pose.”

”Yes,” said Lewis; ”of course. What of it?”

”What of it? Why, I will. When?”

”Do _you_ mean it?” asked Lewis.

Vi nodded.

”Name your own time.”

”To-morrow,” said Vi, ”at ten.”

The following morning Lewis was up early, putting his great, bare studio in fitting order, and trying to amplify and secure the screened-in corner which previous models had frequently d.a.m.ned as a purely tentative dressing-room. Promptly at ten Vi appeared.

”Where's your maid?” asked Lewis. ”You've simply got to have a maid along for this sort of thing.”

”You're wrong,” said Vi. ”It's just the sort of thing one doesn't have a maid for. It's easier to trust two to keep quiet than to keep a maid from vain imaginings. And--it's a lot less expensive.”

”Well,” said Lewis, ”where's your costume?”

”Here,” said Vi, ”in my recticule.”

They laughed. Ten minutes later Vi appeared in her filmy costume.

Lewis's face no longer smiled. He was sitting on a bench at the farther end of the room, solemnly smoking a pipe. He did not seem to notice that Vi's whole body was suffused, nervous.

”Dance,” said Lewis.

Vi hesitated a moment and then danced, at first a little stiffly. But her mind gradually concentrated on her movements; she began to catch the impersonal working atmosphere of a model.

”Hold that!” cried Lewis, and, a second later: ”No, that will never do.

You've stiffened. Try again.”

Over and over Vi tried to catch the pose and keep it until, without a word, she crossed the room, threw herself on a couch, and began to cry from pure exhaustion. When she had partly recovered, she suddenly awoke to the fact that Lewis had not come to comfort her. She looked up. Lewis was still sitting on the bench. He was filling a fresh pipe.

”Blown over?” he asked casually. ”Come on. At it again.”

At the end of another half-hour Vi gave up the struggle. She had caught the pose twice, but she had been unable to hold it.