"If I only could--it's splendid so," he was murmuring, "but I wish you to sit."
She acquiesced without question. "I feel like a specimen," she sighed. "It's a terrible ordeal. I'm all arms and hands. _Must_ you squint?"
In Burnett's laugh all restraint was liberated to the winds.
"Of course. All artists squint. It's like the circular sweep of the thumb--a symbol of the craft."
He walked behind her and adjusted the screen, taking away the crimson drapery and putting a greyish-green one in its place.
"There," he cried, "just as you are. It's stunning."
She was leaning forward with an elbow on the chair arm, her hands clasped, one slender wrist at her chin.
"Really! You're awfully easy to please--I wonder if I shall do as well as Agatha."
He took up a charcoal--looked at its end, and made a slight adjustment of the easel. "Before we begin--there's one thing I forgot." He paused. "All painters are sensitive, you know. I'm rather queerer than most. I hope you won't care." The charcoal was now making rapid gyrations upon the surface of the canvas. "I'm awfully sensitive to criticism--in the early stages. I usually manage to pull out somehow--but in the beginning--when I'm drawing, laying in the figure--I don't like my canvas seen. Sometimes it lasts even longer. You won't mind not looking, will you?"
"I see. That's what the grey thing is for. I don't mind in the least; only I hope it will come soon. I'm wild to see. And please smoke. I know you want to."
The grateful Burnett drew forth his cigarette-case and while his model rested busied himself among his tubes of paint, squeezing the colors out upon the palette.
"If you only knew," he sighed, "how very difficult it seems." But the large brush dipped into the paint and Burnett worked vigorously, a fine light glowing in his eyes. Miss Darrow watched the generous flow from the oil cup mingling with the colors.
[Illustration: "'What a lot of vermilion you use.'"]
"Hair," he replied. He seemed so absorbed that she said no more, and she didn't know whether to laugh or frown. Later she ventured:
"If it's carroty I'll never speak to you again. Please make it auburn, Mr. Burnett."
He only worked the more rapidly. He seemed to be dipping into every color upon the palette, in the center of which had grown a brown of the color of walnut-juice. This he was applying vigorously to the lower part of the canvas. When the palette was cleared he put it aside and sank back in a chair with a sigh.