Through the room Joan floated after the elusive ball. Sylvia watched her with a light breaking over her own face.
"Great, great!" she cried from her corner, "go it, Joan, you're the real thing!"
Joan was not listening. What her eyes saw were the figures in the fountain of the sunken room. She was one of them again—the story was coming true! It was no longer a golden balloon she was touching, fondling, reaching for, tossing—it was sparkling water, and birds seemed singing in the big north studio.
At last it was over. On Sylvia's canvas the figure appeared to have undergone a marvellous change by a few rapid and bewitched strokes. The sand-bag impression had been removed—the figure was alive!
"Syl, dear, you are wonderful!"
Joan came and stood close. "What have you done to it?"
"Put you in it. Or," here Sylvia tossed her palette aside and caught Joan by the shoulders, "you've put yourself in me. I've a line on your opportunity, Joan, it came to me like a flash of inspiration. I hope you are game."
"I'm game, all right," Joan returned, quietly. She was thinking of her next visit to the bank.
"Dress your prettiest, my lamb. Look success from head to foot and then go to the address I'll give you. I have a friend, Elspeth Gordon, who is opening a tea room. She may not think you necessary to her scheme of things, she's Scotch and terribly thrifty, with a dash of nearness, but you tell her that I say you'll be the making of her."
Joan laughed and darted away to array herself in her best.