“Oh, Kelly, be lofty and Olympian!  Be a god and shame the rest of us!”

“I’ll shamefully resemble one of ’em in another moment if you continue tormenting me!”

“Which one, great one?”

“Jupiter, little lady.  He was the boss philanderer you know.”

“What is a philanderer, my Olympian friend?”

“Oh, one of those Olympian divinities who always began the day by kissing the girls all around.”

“Before breakfast?”

“Certainly.”

“It’s—­after breakfast, Kelly.”

“Luncheon and dinner still impend.”

“Besides—­I’m not a bit lonely to-day....  I’m afraid I wouldn’t let you, Kel—­I mean Louis.”

“Why didn’t you say ’Kelly’?”

“Kelly is too god-like to kiss.”

“Oh!  So that’s the difference!  Kelly isn’t human; Louis is.”

“Kelly, to me,” she admitted, “is practically kissless....  I haven’t thought about Louis in that regard.”

“Consider the matter thoroughly.”

“Do you wish me to?” She bent her head, smiling.  Then, looking up with enchanting audacity: 

“I really don’t know, Mr. Neville.  Some day when I’m lonely—­and if Louis is at home and Kelly is out—­you and I might spend an evening together on a moonlit lake and see how much of a human being Louis can be.”

She laughed, watching him under the dark lashes, charming mouth mocking him in every curve.

“Do you think you’re likely to be lonely to-night?” he asked, surprised at the slight acceleration of his pulses.

“No, I don’t.  Besides, you’d be only the great god Kelly to me this evening.  Besides that I’m going to dinner with Querida, and afterward we’re going to see the ‘Joy of the Town’ at the Folly Theatre.”

“I didn’t know,” he said, curtly.  For a few moments he sat there, looking interestedly at a familiar door-knob.  Then rising:  “Do you feel all right for posing?”

“Yes.”

“Alors—­”

“Allons, mon dieu!” she laughed.

Work began.  She thought, watching him with sudden and unexpected shyness, that he seemed even more aloof, more preoccupied, more worried, more intent than before.  In this new phase the man she had known as a friend was now entirely gone, vanished!  Here stood an utter stranger, very human, very determined, very deeply perplexed, very much in earnest.  Everything about this man was unknown to her.  There seemed to be nothing about him that particularly appealed to her confidence, either; yet the very uncertainty was interesting her now—­intensely.

This other phase of his dual personality had been so completely a surprise that, captivated, curious, she could keep neither her gaze from him nor her thoughts.  Was it that she was going to miss in him the other charm, lose the delight in his speech, his impersonal and kindly manner, miss the comfortable security she had enjoyed with him, perhaps after some half gay, half sentimental conflict with lesser men?