She sat motionless, eyes on the grass. When again she lifted them their pure beauty held him.
"What is it you wish?" she asked. "That I should be your model for the—this prize which you desire to strive for?"
"Yes; for that."
"How can I? I work all day."
"I could use you at night and on Saturday afternoons, and all day Sunday. And—have you had your yearly vacation?"
She drew a quietly tired breath. "No," she said.
"Then—I will give you two hundred dollars extra for those ten days," he went on eagerly—so eagerly that he forgot the contingency on which hung any payment at all. As for her, payment was not even in her thoughts.
Through the deep, sweet content which came to her with the chance of serving him, ran an undercurrent of confused pain that he could so blindly misunderstand her. If she thought at all of the amazing possibility of such a fortune as he offered, she knew that she would not accept it from him. But this, and the pain of his misunderstanding, scarcely stirred the current of a strange, new happiness that flowed through every vein.
"Do you think I could really help you?"
"If you will." His voice trembled.