young man. “Take it, and may genius attend you. That rug, by the way, has a history. It's a Chinese pattern made in Persia. I got it in Arabia. It was the lifework of a Turkish slave with a name like an anagram, and it has a hundred and twenty-eight thousand knots to the square inch."

"Good heavens, how do you know? You didn't count them, did you?"

"No, but I bought the story along with the rug. The bazaar man told me that its historical and literary associations are well, they're beyond my power of description, and I've forgotten them. In any event, it's a rare bit of weaving. Let me carry it in for you. I'll promise not to stay long, and I'd like to see your picture. May I?"

"If you're not afraid to be disappointed," said Mary, “I'd like to have you. Maybe you can give me some advice."

They entered her studio together, and found the model reading the previous morning's evening paper by the window.

"Come to life, Sarah!” cried Mary happily. I've got a Bokhara!"

The model stood up, shook out her gown, and yawned vigorously.

"Hello, stranger," she said affably to the young man from Number Eight. "I knew I'd remember your name if I heard it. I'm Irish myself."

"Now I insist on staying," said the young man.

By the time that Kibbey's rug was an integral part of the portrait, the artist changed her mind about the chair. It was adapted so cleverly that instead of presenting the appearance of a mahogany relic occupied by a social regent, it looked like the reproduction from the furniture catalogue that it was. It was so hopelessly unworthy of the Bokhara that Mary Ann borrowed a genuine Heppelwhite from Kibbey, and framed Sarah in the simon-pure. The resuit was striking.

"It seems to me," said Kibbey, "that the main trouble is with the gown. Is it really stylish, or is it only my masculine imagination that makes it look like a sort of mourn ing kimono?"

To tell the truth," admitted Mary, "it doesn't look awfully exclusive, does it? Do you think I'd better get a new one?”

"If I were painting a sample portrait," said Kibbey, “I'd have the gown so fashionable that a married man would moan in

anguish when his wife stopped to analyze it at the exhibition. Can't you get a soulgripping sort of gown-something that would do for a fashion-plate? The object of this picture, as I understand it, is to attract attention. Sarah reminds me of my grandmother's family photograph-album.'

"I think you're right," said Mary, and she not only relinquished all claim to black net over black satin for blue charmeuse and orchids, but also augmented the effect by an old Japanese screen which Kibbey volunteered to lend her for a background.

The portrait was repainted so many times that the gown had to be amplified at the waist to accommodate the ever hungry Sarah; the ground color changed from dark brown to light brown, and back to dark brown; Sarah's hair was remodeled first to conform to the prevailing mode of February, and then to anticipate that of May; but always the wonderful Bokhara added dignity and luster to the canvas, and every inch of it reflected glory on the Moslem slave who had sailed into the ages at the rate of a hundred and twenty-eight thousand knots to the square inch.

When it was done, the young man from Number Eight sat comfortably on Mary's divan and smoked his pipe.

"Well?" inquired Mary.

“Do you want me to be perfectly frank?” "Oh, it's not necessary," said Mary. “Nobody ever begins a compliment like that. Your frank opinion is that it's 'punk'?”

"My dear girl," said Kibbey, “your treatment of the rug is marvelous. I don't believe there's a better painted rug extant. As a rug painter, you're to be numbered among the classics."

“But the chair—and the screen-and incidentally the lady?”

"The lady," commented Kibbey, "is a sister to Judy O'Grady-on the surface, as well as under the skin. I don't think you've done it well, Mary Ann-it's poor art; and not even good Sarah." And then, seeing how crestiallen she looked, he added consolingly: "It's the fault of the model, I dare say. You tried a society portrait, and Sarah looks embarrassed in a décolleté gown. I'm sorry, Mary Ann.”

"Sometimes," said she, "your inferences are more subtle than at other times. You hint that I'm not the smashing success I thought I was. Is that it?"

as ar eventual possibility?"

· Not Since y unday-school superintendent ran away with the organist He was my last chance.

"Yes," said Mary, "he was, and he eloped with the organist, and she wore lace mitts, and giggled."

"Mary," he said, "I want to marry you myself. Don't interrupt me, please! Here's the whole story. You aren't an artist any more than I am. You've plenty of ambition, and very little ability. You've fought your campaign in New York, and you haven't even smelled powder. So have Iand I can't paint as well as you can. I love you for trying so hard; but I wish you wouldn't. Let's stop it, and do something newable! I have a little money, and I've wanted you for ever so long."

"You you have?"

"Yes," said Kibbey honestly, "I have." She straightened suddenly, and tried to meet his eyes squarely, "My dear boy," she said, "please don't go any further." "Let me finish

"Please don't. Let me talk instead. I do care, but I mustn't. You've been wonderfully good to me. I don't mean lending me things, but taking an interest in me. You've laughed at me, of course, but you've laughed more at yourself, and when you've poked fun at me it's been the best kind of

criticism. You've always played fair. I don't think this portrait is bad at all. I expect to sell at the fall exhibition, and I want to go on painting. It isn't the money anybody can make money-but I want to feel that I'm part of the world, winning my own success all by myself. I had a wretched life at home-this has been a solid year out of paradise. I can't give it upnot until I've tried my wings. When I've tried, when I've found that I can be a true artist or none at all-then I'll give it up in a minute for the right man."

"Don't you want a home of your own?" "Don't I!" She brushed a hand across her eyes. "But I want to make good first. I feel as though I owe it to Uncle Silas."

"Under the proper circumstances, would I be the right man?"

"Yes," she said ingenuously, "you would be."

"Then why can't we consider ourselves-"

"No! You mustn't ask me! I've got to fight this out all alone."

"But if your picture doesn't sell, you'll go back to Bison City?"

Mary looked at the canvas. "Necessarily. If I don't sell it-I'm through."

"You mean," said Kibbey, "that if some one buys that portrait, you're likely to keep me waiting for ten or a dozen years, but if public opinion sentences you to a nursery instead of a studio, you'd be willing to have me ask you again?'

"Yes-in that case I should-like to have you ask me again." She regained her poise with some effort. "In the meantime, let's be just the same good friends!" Her emotion sought the nearest outlet. "Please have some tea, won't you? I'd be terribly lonely if you left me now."

"Yes," said Kibbey, not to be outdone in self-control, although his eyes belied the calmness of his voice. "Another cup-not quite so strong, please."

The exhibition was not the usual kind of exhibition at all. Trigonometrical ladies smiled across to impressionistic gentlemen, whose total lack of features precluded a gallant return of the attention; color without drawing was there; and drawing without color; and a great deal of paint without either. It was, in short, a modern exhibition; the twentieth century was on trial, and the old masters were implicated.

As usual, the critics filled columns in the newspapers with violent attacks on what everybody knew was bad, and spirited defense of what nearly everyone thought was good, and entirely neglected the few hundred canvases in the middle, of which the "Portrait of a Lady," by Mary Ann Atherton, was easily the largest. It was so palpably real and earnest that some of those who came to the gallery in untutored curiosity paused to stare at it, and thought it must be art.

The man who apparently liked it best was a distinguished old gentleman with luxuriant whiskers, who halted directly before it one afternoon, and watched it intently for some time before he put on his silk hat and went along to see the Cubists. In the course of half an hour he returned to peer at it through the lower half of his bifocals; and still later he came a third time, and touched the glowing surface with an inquisitive forefinger. His obvious interest attracted the notice of an attendant, who considerately waylaid Miss Atherton at the evening session, with the information that a rich and famous connoisseur had honored her work with at least half an hour of silent rhapsody.

"How do you know he's a connoisseur?" demanded Mary.

The attendant was armed with the facts. "He told me so," he said. "He's a collector."

"I see," said Mary, and for the next few days she haunted the vicinity of the "Lady," with some regularity and no satisfaction.

Near the end of the week the attendant sought her again. "He was here this morning, miss," he told her. "He had a book with him. I guess he wants to see you." "What, really?"

"Well, he said, 'It's a jewel!' Then he turned over a lot of pages, and said, ‘It's a jewel!' Then I went up to him-" "Yes, yes?"

"I said: 'I know the lady that owns it. She's here nearly every day.' And he said he was coming in tonight, and if I happened to see you-"

"Happened to see me!" she repeated. agonizedly. "Happened to see me!"

"Oh, I'd have got you, all right. I'd have telegraphed or advertised. I told him you'd be here."

"Thank you," said Mary tremulously. "I'll be here."