The Foolish Virgin.

by Thomas Dixon.

CHAPTER I. A FRIENDLY WARNING

"Mary Adams, you're a fool!"

The single dimple in a smooth red cheek smiled in answer.

"You're repeating yourself, Jane----"

"You won't give him one hour's time for just three sittings?"

"Not a second for one sitting----"

"Hopeless!"

Mary smiled provokingly, her white teeth gleaming in obstinate good humor.

"He's the most distinguished artist in America----"

"I've heard so."

"It would be a liberal education for a girl of your training to know such a man----"

"I'll omit that course of instruction."

The younger woman was silent a moment, and a flush of anger slowly mounted her temples. The blue eyes were fixed reproachfully on her friend.

"You really thought that I would pose?"

"I hoped so."

"Alone with a man in his studio for hours?"

Jane Anderson lifted her dark brows.

"Why, no, I hardly expected that! I'm sure he would take his easel and palette out into the square in front of the Plaza Hotel and let you sit on the base of the Sherman monument. The crowds would cheer and inspire him--bah! Can't you have a little common-sense? There are a few brutes among artists, as there are in all professions--even among the superintendents of your schools. Gordon's a great creative genius. If you'd try to flirt with him, he'd stop his work and send you home. You'd be as safe in his studio as in your mother's nursery. I've known him for ten years. He's the gentlest, truest man I've ever met. He's doing a canvas on which he has set his whole heart."

"He can get professional models."

"For his usual work, yes--but this is the head of the Madonna. He saw you walking with me in the Park last week and has been to my studio a half-dozen times begging me to take you to see him. Please, Mary dear, do this for my sake. I owe Gordon a debt I can never pay. He gave me the cue to the work that set me on my feet. He was big and generous and helpful when I needed a friend. He asked nothing in return but the privilege of helping me again if I ever needed it. You can do me an enormous favor--please."

Mary Adams rose with a gesture of impatience, walked to her window and gazed on the torrent of humanity pouring through Twenty-third Street from the beehives of industry that have changed this quarter of New York so rapidly in the last five years. She turned suddenly and confronted her friend.

"How could you think that I would stoop to such a thing?"

"Stoop!"

"Yes," she snapped, "--pose for an artist! I'd as soon think of rushing stark naked through Twenty-third Street at noon!"

The older woman looked at her flushed face, suppressed a sharp answer, broke into a fit of laughter and threw her arms around Mary's neck.

"Honey, you're such a hopeless little fool, you're delicious! You know that I love you--don't you?"

The pretty lips quivered.

"Yes."

"Could I possibly ask you to do a thing that would harm a single brown hair of your head?"

The firm hand of the older girl touched a rebellious lock with tenderness.

"Of course not, from your point of view, Jane dear," the stubborn lips persisted. "But you see it's not my point of view. You're older than I----"

Jane smiled.

"Hoity toity, Miss! I'm just twenty-eight and you're twenty-four. Age is not measured by calendars these days."

"I didn't mean that," the girl apologized. "But you're an artist. You're established and distinguished. You belong to a different world."

Jane Anderson laid her hand softly on her friend's.

"That's just it, dear. I do belong to a different world--a big new world of whose existence you are not quite conscious. You are living in the old, old world in which women have groped for thousands of years. I don't mind confessing that I undertook this job of getting you to pose for Gordon for a double purpose. I wished to do something to repay the debt I owe him--but I wished far more to be of help to you. You're living in the Dark Ages, and it's a dangerous thing for a pretty girl to live in the Dark Ages and date her letters from New York to-day----"

"I don't understand you in the least."

"And I'm afraid you never will."

She paused suddenly and changed her tone.

"Tell me now, are you happy in your work?"

"I'm earning sixty dollars a month--my position is secure----"

"But are you happy in it?"

"I don't expect to teach school all my life," was the vague answer.

"Exactly. You loathe the sight of a school-room. You do the task they set you because your father's a clergyman and can't support his big family. You're waiting and longing for the day of your deliverance--isn't it so?"

"Perhaps."

"And that day of deliverance?"

"Will come when I meet my Fate!"