'Now,' she said, 'I want to be very serious. It is my last chance. Roland, I am resolved that I will try to grow to my full height. You are going away to-morrow, and I shall have no one to advise me. Give me all the help you can before you go.'
'What help can I give you, Armorel?'
'I have been thinking. You have told me all about yourself. You are going to be a great artist: you will give up all your life to your work: when you have grown as tall as you can, everybody will congratulate you, and you will be proud and happy. But who is to tell me? How shall I know when I am grown to my full height?'
'You have got something more in your mind, Armorel.'
'Give me a model, Roland. You always paint from a model yourself—you told me so. Now, think of the very best actual girl of all the girls you know—the most perfect girl, mind: she must be a girl that I can remember and try to copy. I must have something to think of and go by, you know.'
'The very best actual girl I know?' he laughed, with a touch of the abominable modern cynicism which no longer believes in girls. 'That wouldn't help you much, I am afraid. You see, Armorel, I should not look to the actual girls I know for the best girl at all. There is, however'—he pulled his shadowy moustache, looking very wise—'a most wonderful girl—I confess that I have never met her, but I have heard of her: the poets keep talking about her—and some of the novelists are fond of drawing her; I have heard of her, read of her, and dreamed of her. Shall I tell you about her?'
'If you please—that is, if she can become my model.'
'Perhaps. She is quite a possible girl, Armorel, like yourself. That is to say, a girl who may really develop out of certain qualities. As for actual girls, there are any number whom one knows in a way—one can distinguish them—I mean by their voices, their faces, and their figures and so forth. But as for knowing anything more about them——'
'Tell me, then, about the girl whom you do know, though you have never seen her.'
'I will if I can. As for her face—now——'