I posted my letter and then started out to keep an engagement to pose
for an illustrator on Huntington Avenue. He had a charming studio
apartment in a new building. I knew both Mr. Snow and his wife pretty
well, for I had posed for most of his later work. They had only been
married a little while. She was very pretty, and sweet, too. He was a
tall, rather lanky man of about thirty, and his long teeth stuck out in
front under his mustache. He made a great deal of money, as he said he
had the knack of making pretty girls’ faces, and that was what the
magazines wanted.
He told me one day that there was a time when he had not known where his
next meal would come from. Then he had met his wife. He said: “Her
family are the Reynolds of Cambridge,
[Illustration: He started to button my waist for me, but while he was
doing it he kissed me on the back of my neck.]
and they had the dough all right.” She had really started him on the way
to success.
He was in a very genial mood that afternoon, and chatted away while he
drew my head. He was making a cover for a popular magazine. I had
removed my waist, and arranged some drapery about my shoulders to give
the effect of an evening gown.
When he was through, and I was buttoning up my waist in the back, he
came behind me and said:
“Allow me,” and started to button my waist for me, but while he was
doing it, he kissed me on the back of my neck.
“I think--” I began, when a sweet voice called from the doorway:
“I have brought Miss Ascough and you some tea, dear.”
Mrs. Snow had entered the room, carrying a tray in her hand. She was a
frail, pretty little thing, with beautiful reddish hair piled on top of
her head. Mr. Snow went forward and took the tray from her hands, and,
bending down, he kissed the hands holding it.
“Thank you, darling,” he murmured. “What an angel you are!”
She looked at him with such love and trust in her eyes that I decided no
tale of mine should hurt her. I made up my mind, however, not to pose
for Mr. Snow again. So there was another of my artists gone! I left that
house wondering if it were possible to believe in any man, and then I
thought of Mr. Rintoul and I felt warmed and comforted.