This was going to be such an adventure as one reads about in the
ancient numbers of _Blackwood's_. I slipped the robe and mask into my
suit-case and lighted my pipe. During great moments like this, a man
gathers courage and confidence from a pipeful of tobacco. I dropped
into a comfortable Morris, touched the gas-logs, and fell into a
pleasant dream. It was not necessary for me to start for the
Twenty-third Street ferry till nine; so I had something like
three-quarters of an hour to idle away. . . . What beautiful hair that
girl had! It was like sunshine, the silk of corn, the yield of the
harvest. And the marvelous abundance of it! It was true that she was
an artist's model; it was equally true that she had committed a mild
impropriety in addressing me as she had; but, for all I could see, she
was a girl of delicate breeding, doubtless one of the many whose family
fortunes, or misfortunes, force them to earn a living. And it is no
disgrace these days to pose as an artist's model. The classic oils,
nowadays, call only for exquisite creations in gowns and hats;
mythology was exhausted by the old masters. Rome, Paris, London;
possibly a bohemian existence in these cities accounted for her ease in
striking up a conversation, harmless enough, with a total stranger.
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