"That's where the luck came in," said Lewis, smiling; "and the luck is what keeps the work from being great."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," said Lewis, "Le Brux says that luck often leads to success, never to greatness."
"And how did luck come in?" drawled Vi.
Lewis smiled again.
"I'll tell you," he said. "The model is an old pal of mine. One day we were bathing in the Marne,—at least I was bathing, and she was just going to,—when a farmer appeared on the scene and yelled at her. She was startled and turning to make a run for it when I shouted, 'Hold that pose, Cellette! She's a mighty well-trained model. For a second she held the pose. That was enough. She remembered it ever after.
"Does it take a lot of training to be a model?" asked Blanche. "How would I do?" She turned her bare shoulders frankly to him.
Lewis glanced at her. "Yours is not a beauty that can be held in stone," he said. "You are too respectable for a bacchante, too vivacious for anything else." He turned to Vi. "You would do better," he said as though she too had asked.
Vi said nothing, but her large, dark eyes suddenly looked away and beyond the room. A flush rose slowly into her smooth, dusky cheek. Blanche bit her under lip.
"Vi has won out," said H lne to Leighton.