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fer; but rather as a little crouching animal against a sun-baked wall. He smiled at the struggle he should have when the question of costume came up.

"Well, I'll do her, if you like," he turned to say; and two tears of senile triumph glittered on the physician's cheeks.

"To-morrow, then—at two—may I bring her? She leaves as soon as possible for the south. She lives on sun, heat, radiance. . ."

"To-morrow—yes," Campton nodded.

His decision once reached, the whole subject bored him, and in spite of Fortin's entreaties he got up and signalled to George.

As they strolled home through the brilliant midnight streets, the boy said: "Did I hear you tell old Fortin you were going to do his dancer?"

"Yes—why not? She's very paintable," said Campton, abruptly shaken out of his security.

"Beginning to-morrow?"

"Why not?"

"Come, you know—to-morrow!" George laughed.

"We'll see," his father rejoined, with an obscure sense that if he went on steadily enough doing his usual job it might somehow divert the current of events.

On the threshold of the hotel they were waylaid by an elderly man with a round face and round eyes behind gold eye-glasses. His grey hair was cut in a fringe over his guileless forehead, and he was dressed in ex-