“I'm sure he will,” she smiled. “Still, I should like to help.”
“Do it if you want to, Beautiful, only I can't associate you with pens and typewriters. I'm sure if you were just to open your mouth, and sing, out there in the square—” he waved a brush—“people would come running from all over the city and throw yellow and green bills at you like leaves, till you had to be dug out with long shovels by those funny street-cleaners who go about looking dirty in white clothes. You would be a nymph in a shower of gold—only the gold would be paper! How like America!” He whistled again absently, touching the canvas with delicate strokes.
“You are quite the most ridiculous person in the world,” she laughed at him. “You know perfectly well that my voice is much too small to be of practical value.”
“But I'm not being practical, and you mustn't be literal, darling—goddesses never should.”
“Be practical just for a moment then,” she urged, “and think about my chances of selling stories.”
“I couldn't,” he said absently, holding his brush suspended. “Wait a minute, I've got an idea! That about the shower of gold—I know—Danaë!” he shouted suddenly, throwing down his palette. “That's how I'll paint you. I've been puzzling over it for days. Darling, it will be my chef d'oeuvre!” He seized her hands. “Think of it! You standing under a great shaft of sun, nude, exalted, your hands and eyes lifted. About you gold, pouring down in cataracts, indistinguishable from the sunlight—a background of prismatic fire—and your hair lifting into it like wings!” He was irradiated.
She had blushed to the eyes. “You want me to sit to you—like that!” Her voice trembled.
He gazed at her in frank amazement. “Should you mind?” he asked, amazed. “Why, you rose, you're blushing. I believe you're shy!” He put his arms around her, smiling into her face. “You wouldn't mind, darling, for me!” he urged, his cheek to hers. “You are so glorious. I've always wanted to paint your glory since the first day I saw you. You can't mind!”
He saw she still hesitated, and his tone became not only surprised but hurt. He could not conceive of shame in connection with beauty. Seeing this she mastered her shrinking. He was right, she felt—she had given him her beauty, and a denial of it in the service of his art would rebuff the God in him—the creator. She yielded, but she could not express the deeper reason for her emotion. As he was so oblivious, she could not bring herself to tell him why in particular she shrank from sitting as Danaë. He had not thought of the meaning of the myth in connection with her all-absorbing hope.
“Promise me one thing,” she pleaded. “Don't make the face too like me—just a little different, dearest, please!”