JUNE had come and I was filling the last of my engagements. There was not a single other day on my calendar for the week, and it was Wednesday. I had had only two engagements the week before.

I was posing for three women. The work was easy, as they were amateurs, and liked to meet together and use the same model, and paint and have a social time. I was posing in a gypsy costume, and they talked to me occasionally in a patronizing way, as if I were a little poodle. One of them asked me if I wouldn’t like to paint. I knew I could paint better than she could, but I pretended to simper and said:

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

One of the women, with kind-looking eyes, smiled at me and asked me if I managed to make a living, and then the one who had asked me if I would like to paint said:

“Oh, by the way, we won’t need you again, as we are all off for the country.”

She added that they might be able to use me the next season, and I wondered dully to myself whether I would need them when the new season came. A feeling of despair was stealing over me—despair and recklessness.

The woman with the kind eyes who asked me if I made a living, I have since recognized as the wife of the President. I wish I had known her better.

Though I had so little work to do, nevertheless I was feeling languid and tired in these days, and when I reached my room that afternoon, I threw myself bodily down upon my bed. I felt that I did not want to get up even to go out for my dinner. I was lying there with my face buried in the pillow, when Miss Darling called up the stairs:

“There’s a gentleman to see you, Miss Marion.”

I jumped up and ran out into the hall. A short, dark man was mounting the stairs. I thought at first he was a picture-dealer I had once seen at Mr. Sands’ studio.

“Miss Ascough?” he asked.

I bowed and led him to my room.

He said he had obtained my name from Mr. Sands and that he wanted to engage me as a model for some decorative work he was doing. He had seen me several times about the studio buildings, and had decided I was the type for this particular work. As he said the work would

last all summer, I was delighted, and I thanked him fervently. Then he said:

“Suppose we have a little supper together somewhere.”

I was awfully sorry, but I had promised to help Miss St. Denis fix a waist she was making. So I told this man I could not disappoint my friend. He said: “As you please then,” and was going, when I asked him for his address. He stopped and thought a moment, and then he wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. He told me to come to work at ten the following morning, and, bowing, went. The address was in Brookline, and as it was some distance out I planned to start early to be sure to be there on time.

After the man had gone, all my lassitude vanished. I felt like dancing and screaming, I was so relieved and happy. Here I was engaged for six hours’ work a day for all of the summer. I rushed over to tell the good news to Rose St. Denis. She said:

“I think it is too good to be true. It looks too easy. I think he will want the model to pose nude, ha? You will not do so yet?” As I shook my head, she said with a nod: “You will make very poor living if you don’t do so, mon enfant. The artists have not enough to keep one model in work in the costume, and then there are so many doing the same thing. Every girl—all ze actress and ze chorus girl—even ze frien’ of ze artists, she will pose in ze costume. Ze model cannot get enough work to keep her, unless she is friend of some one or, maybe, she is complaisante to ze artist—yes. Only when she pose nude in ze schools—see—she get ze work, so long as she have ze belle figure. It is so. Now, which a model prefer? Pose in nude, starve—or perhaps be maitresse to somebody—which is ze same thing,” she added with a shrug as “aller au diable!” (to go to the devil!)

“Which would you prefer?” I asked her.

“Mon dieu! some funny question you ask,” said the French girl. “It is because I love my Alfred (Alfred was her fiancÉ) that I pose nude for ze other mens; for because I pose comme Ça I can keep myself good and pure for only him. It would be more easy if I were not good. Do you not see, enfant? I pose and stand on my poor feet for three, four, and sometimes nine heures a day—nine heures when I do night work, and for zat I get me fifty cent one heure. The bad girl she get very liddle time more moneys than I; but me? I keep me my respect. Yes—it is so. Soon my Alfred, he will come from France and we will marry. Then, enfant, ah! we will be happy like cheeldren.”

Somehow when she was speaking, this model who posed in the nude, she looked like the Virgin Mary, and I put my arms around her and kissed her. She said:

“Pauvre enfant! Me? I know eet is hard for you! I have ze pity for you; but dat will not put ze food in ze stomach! Non! Soon you will see!”

Happily I awoke next morning. I was going to start at good, steady work. Now, I thought, I would pay Lu Frazer back all I owed her, and I’d send mama some money every week, and Reggie’s letters should go unanswered. He had written me saying that he was coming soon to Boston to bring me home, unless I returned myself. And, I thought, I would buy myself a new hat, and trim it with violets.

I went into the basement dining-room to get my breakfast, and the landlady put a bill at my plate. It was for three dollars for meals I had had. I told her I would pay her sure in a few days.

I had exactly five cents in my pocketbook when I started for Brookline, but I intended to ask the artist to pay me a little in advance. They often did that, and as I was to have steady work, I was sure he would not object. I could not help thinking of a remark of my father’s, that something always “turned up” and I felt that my something had come in the nick of time.

It was three-quarters of an hour’s ride to the street in Brookline he had marked on the card. I got off at last, and walked down the street, looking at the numbers. I went up and down twice, but I could find no such address. I went to nearly every second house on the street, but no one knew the name I inquired for, and the clerk in the drug store where I also inquired said there was no such man in the vicinity. Again and again I looked, and then a sick sense of apprehension stole over me, and I began to realize that I was the victim of some beastly hoax.

What in heaven’s name was I to do? I had no carfare even, and it was too far to walk. I wandered about distractedly, and then I finally resolved to get on the car, and when the conductor should ask for my fare, I would pretend I had lost it. Then, I thought, “even if he puts me off, I will be that much nearer home, and I will try another car.”

So I got on a car, but I suffered the shame of a cheat, when the conductor finally came up to me, and I almost cried as I pretended to search through my empty pocketbook. Then I heard the conductor’s voice. He was a big red-faced Irishman, with freckles on his face, and he grinned down at me:

“Aw, dat’s all right, kid!” he said, and taking a nickel from his own pocket, he rang up my fare. When I was getting off, I said:

“Thank you, I’ll send it back to you, if you give me your name.”

He laughed:

“Dat’s all right, kid,” he said, and then leaning to my ear, he added: “Say, do you want another nickel, sissy?”