So Brown told her about his theory; how he desired to employ a model, how he desired to study her; what were his ideas of the terms suitable.
He talked fluently, earnestly, and agreeably; and his pretty audience listened with so much apparent intelligence and good taste that her very attitude subtly exhilarated Brown, until he became slightly aware that he was expressing himself eloquently.
He had, it seemed, much to say concerning the profession and practice of good literature. It seemed, too, that he knew a great deal about it, both theoretically and practically. His esteem and reverence for it were unmistakable; his enthusiasm worthy of his courage.
He talked for a long while, partly about literature,[127] partly about himself. And he was at intervals a trifle surprised that he had so much to say, and wondered at the valuable accumulations of which he was unburdening himself with such vast content.
The girl had turned her back to the lagoon and stood leaning against the coquina wall, facing him, her slender hands resting on the coping.
Never had he had such a listener. At the clubs and cafés other literary men always wanted to talk. But here under the great southern stars nobody interrupted the limpid flow of his long dammed eloquence. And he ended leisurely, as he had begun, yet auto-intoxicated, thrillingly conscious of the spell which he had laid upon himself, upon his young listener—conscious, too, of the spell that the soft air and the perfume and the stars had spun over a world grown suddenly and incredibly lovely and young.
She said in a low voice: "I need the money very much.... And I don't mind your studying me."
"Do you really mean it?" he exclaimed, enchanted.
"Yes. But there is one trouble."
"What is it?" he asked apprehensively.