The instructor had caught the sound of the opening door, and he half-turned his head to cast a side glance in its direction. His words died suddenly on his lips. His pose became petrified; his features transfixed with astonishment. His rigid fixity of face and figure froze the watching students into answering tenseness. Even the blanket-wrapped model held a freshly lighted cigarette poised half-way to her lips. Then, the man in the door took an unsteady step forward, and from his trembling fingers the key fell to the floor, where in the dead stillness it seemed to strike with a crash. The girl and Steele wheeled. At that moment, the lips of the bearded face moved, and from them came the announcement:
“Me voici, je viens d’arriver.”
The voice broke the hypnotic suspense of the silence as a pin-point snaps a toy balloon.
Hautecoeur sprang excitedly forward.
“Marston! Marston has returned!” he shouted, in a great voice that echoed against the sky-light.
As the man stepped forward, he staggered slightly, and would have fallen had he not been already folded in the giant embrace of the lesser master.
Duska stood as white as the fresh sheets of drawing-paper at her feet. Her fingers spasmodically clenched and opened at her sides, and from her teeth, biting into the lower lip, her breathing came in gasps. The walls seemed to race in circles, and it was with half-realization that she heard Steele calling the man, wildly demanding recognition.
The newcomer was leaning heavily on Hautecoeur’s arm. He did not appear to notice Steele, but his gaze met and held the girl’s pallid face and the intensely anguished eyes that looked into his. For an instant, they stood facing each other, neither speaking; then, in a voice of polite concern, the tall man said:
“Mademoiselle is ill!” There was no note of recognition—only, the solicitous tone of any man who sees a woman who is obviously suffering.
Duska raised her chin. Her throat gave a convulsive jerk, but she only caught her lip more tightly between her teeth, so that a moment later, when she spoke, there were purplish indentations on its almost bloodless line.