“I do,” said the girl promptly.
“Yes. I shouldn't be surprised,” he assented, lifting his head to contemplate her with his direct and grave regard. “Do you live there with them?”
“They're mine. I model them. I'm a sculptor.”
“Good Lord! You! But you're a very good one, aren't you?—if you did those.”
“I've been a very bad one. Now I'm trying to be a very good one.”
A gleam of comprehension lit his eye. “Oh, then it's as a subject that you thought I'd do. You wanted to sculp me.”
“Yes, I do. For my collection. You see, I've adopted this Square.”
“And now you're sculping it. I see.” He raised himself to peer across at the windows where the blithe figures danced, tiny mænads of the gutter, Bacchæ of the asphalt. “But I don't see why on earth you want me. Do you think you could make me happy?”
“I shouldn't try.”
“Hopeless job, you think? As a sculptor you ought to be a better judge of character. You ought to pierce through the externals and perceive with your artistic eye that beneath this austere mask I'm as merry a little cricket as ever had his chirp smothered by the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune.”