"Now tell me directly, what is the matter."
"It'll be such a humbly picture with my hair that way. I'd ought to look my best. I'd rather you'd paint me waiting on your table."
"But a waitress is such a trite subject. It would be what your friend, I mean, our friend, Miss King, calls bromidic. An artist, a real artist, with a soul, Amarilly, doesn't look for pretty subjects. It's the truth that he seeks. To paint things as they are is what he aims to do. A little scrub-girl appeals to the artistic temperament more than a little waitress, don't you think? But only you, Amarilly, could look the part of the Little Scrub-Girl as you did. And it would be incongruous— remember the word, please, Amarilly, in-con-gru-ous—to paint her with stylishly dressed hair. You posed so easily, so perfectly, and your expression was so precisely the one I wanted, and your patience in keeping the pose was so wonderful, that I thought you had really caught the spirit of the thing, and were anxious to help me achieve my really great picture."
"I have—I will pose for you as long as you wish," she cried penitently, "and I will braid my hair on wire, and then it will stand out better."
"Good! You are a dear, amenable little girl. To-morrow afternoon we will resume. Here, let me loosen your braids. Goodness, what thick strands!"
She stood by the open window, and the trembling, marginal lights of a setting sun sent gleams and glints of gold through her loosened hair which fell like a flaming veil about her.
"Amarilly," exclaimed Derry rapturously, "I never saw anything quite so beautiful. Some day I'll paint you, not as a scrub-girl nor as a waitress, but as Sunset. You shall stand at this window with your hair as it is now, and you'll outshine the glory of descending Sol himself. I will get a filmy, white dress for you to pose in and present it to you afterward. And as you half turn your head toward the window, you must have a dreamy, reflective expression! You must think of something sad, something that might have been a tragedy but for some mitigating—but there, you don't know what I am talking about!"
"Yes, I do, Mr. Derry. I know what you mean, even if I didn't ketch—"
"Catch, Amarilly; not ketch."
"But my word for to-day is 'afraid,'" she said stubbornly. "I wasn't to have but one word a day. I'll say 'ketch' until to-morrow."