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Julien opened the door to her knock. She stepped inside, facing him with bright, inscrutable eyes.

“Why have you been fooling me about your circumstances?” she demanded.

“D—n Merrill!” said Julien with fervor.

“It’s true that your ‘pot-boiling’ brings you a big income?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you take employment as a chauffeur?”

“I don’t. That car belongs to me.”

“And your being a waiter? I don’t suppose the Taverne Splendide belongs to you?”

“An impromptu bit of acting,” confessed the abashed Julien.

“And this attic? Was that hired for the same comedy?”

“No. This is mine, really.”

“I don’t understand. Why have you done it all?”

“If you want to know the truth,” he said defiantly, “so that I could keep on seeing you.”

“That’s a very poor excuse,” she retorted.

“The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what possible interest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling young painter–that was the Bonnie Lassie’s fault, for I never lied to you about it–and after we’d started on that track I didn’t–well, I didn’t have the courage to risk losing you by quitting the masquerade.”

“How you must have laughed at me all the time!”

He flushed to his angry eyes. “Do you think that is fair?” he retorted. “Or kind? Or true?”

“I–I don’t know,” she faltered. “You let me offer you money. And you’ve probably got as much as I have.”

“I won’t have from now on, then. I’m going to paint. I thought, when you told me you were going away, that I couldn’t look at a canvas again. But now I know I was wrong. I’ve got to paint. You’ll have left me that, at least.”

“Mr. Merrill thinks you’re ruining your career. And if you do, it’ll be my fault. I’ll never, never, never,” said the patroness of Art desolately, “try to do any one good again!”

She turned toward the door.

“At least,” said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out of control, “you’ll know that it wasn’t all masquerade. You’ll know why I’ll always keep the picture, even if I never paint another.”

She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw the passion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking.

“Suppose,” she said, “I asked you to give it up.”

“You wouldn’t,” he retorted quickly.

“No, I wouldn’t. But–but–” Her glance, wandering away from him, fell on the joyous line of Beranger bold above the door.

“‘How good is life in an attic at twenty,'” she murmured. Then, turning to him, she held out her hands.

“I could find it good,” she said with a soft little falter in her voice, “even at twenty-two.”

Everything passes in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two, going by with transfigured faces, stopped.

“Let’s tell Dominie,” said Julien.

I waved a jaunty hand. “I know already,” said I, “even if it hadn’t been announced to a waiting world.”

“Wh-wh-why,” stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man’s waiting a lifetime to see, “it–it only just happened.”

“Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It’s been happening for weeks. Come with me.”

I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen’s Elite Restaurant. There stood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of imaginative symbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in its powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and of orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials. “J.T.” and “R.H.” Below, in no less than four colors, ran the legend, “Cupid’s Token.”

“O Lord! Dad!” cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out with frantic feet. “How long has this been there?”

“What’re you doing? Leave it be!” cried the anguished artist. “It’s been there since noon.”

“Never mind,” put in Bobbie softly; “it’s very pretty and tasteful even though it is a little precipitate. But how”–she turned the lovely and puzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist–“how did you know?”

“Artistic intuition,” said Peter Quick Banta with profound complacency. “I’m an artist.”