He is much more delicate than he looks." Valerie glanced curiously at the girl, who was preparing oysters in the chafing dish.
"How do _you_ happen to know so much about him, Rita ?" She answered, carelessly: "I have known him ever since I began to pose--almost." Valerie set her cup aside, sprang up to rinse mouth and hands.

Then, gathering her pink negligee around her, curled up in a big wing-chair, drawing her bare feet up under the silken folds and watching Rita prepare the modest repast for one.
"Rita," she said, "who was the first artist you ever posed for?
Was it John Burleson--and did you endure the tortures of the damned ?" "No, it was not John Burleson....

And I endured--enough." "Don't you care to tell me who it was ?" Rita did not reply at that time.

Later, however, when the simple supper was ended, she lighted a cigarette and found a place where, with lamplight behind her, she could read a book which Burleson had sent her, and which she had been attempting to assimilate and digest all winter.
It was a large, thick, dark book, and weighed nearly four pounds.

It was called "Essays on the Obvious "; and Valerie had made fun of it until, to her surprise, she noticed that her pleasantries annoyed Rita.
Valerie, curled up in the wing-chair, cheek resting against its velvet side, was reading the Psalms again--fascinated as always by the noble music of the verse.