Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/148

 Do you know, the child actually had all those candybox bottoms nailed in a row on the wall over the mantel-piece! I felt like a thief. There they were, all of them you got the list of, and the one we sent last night, and there was a shabby Bible on his mantel-piece."

"How did he treat you?"

Valeska laughed. "Well, not in a way to make me conceited. Oh, he's in love, all right. He looked at me exactly as if he were purchasing a horse. I almost expected him to open my mouth and examine my teeth to see how old I was. But he was nice, all the same, and delighted to find a model that had brains and could take and hold a pose. My, if I'm not tired, though! I was supposed to be playing on a piano—the table—and looking up mischievously over my shoulder. I ache all over!"

"Of course he didn't say anything significant?"

"No. But he stopped working every little while and began to think; and I knew what that meant. Then he'd go to the window and look out for a long while, and then come back and draw like mad. Oh, he had all the signs! Poor boy!"

"Does he want you to-morrow?"

"Yes, all this week."

"Good! By that time I think we shall have arranged some plan to help him. If I bought a picture or two, it might help, perhaps."

Valeska posed for Chester the six days, returning each evening to the studio to report to Astro, each time more interested in the love-affair. Each day she wrote down the cipher message printed in The Star, and the text she found in the studio written on Ruth's