"I dare say," he responded absently. "Give you my word, though, I wasn't thinking of her voice. SHE is lovely."
He walked home as if in a dream. The spell was on him.
Far in the night, he started up from the easy chair in which he had been smoking and dreaming and racking his brain by turns.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed aloud. "I remember! I've got it! And to-morrow I'll prove it."
Then he went to bed, with the storm from the sea pounding about the house, and slept serenely until Pat and Mary wondered whether he meant to get up at all.
"Pat," said he at breakfast, "I want you to go to the city this morning and fetch out all of the STUDIOS you can find about the place. The old ones are in that Italian hall seat and the late ones are in the studio. Bring all of them."
"There's a divvil of a bunch of thim," said Pat ruefully.
He was not to begin sketching the figure until the following day. After luncheon, however, he had an appointment to inspect Hetty's wardrobe, ostensibly for the purpose of picking out a gown for the picture. As a matter of fact, he had decided the point to his own satisfaction the night before. She should pose for him in the dainty white dress she had worn on that occasion.
While they were going over the extensive assortment of gowns, with Sara as the judge from whom there seemed to be no appeal, he casually inquired if she had ever posed before.
Two ladies' maids were engaged in flinging the costly garments about as if they represented so much rubbish. The floor was littered with silks and satins and laces. He was accustomed to this ruthless handling of exquisite fabrics by eager ladies of wealth: it was one way these pampered women had of showing their contempt for possession. Gowns came from everywhere by the armload; from closets, presses and trunks, ultimately landing in a conglomerate heap on the floor when cast aside as undesirable by the artist, the model and the censor.