As he turned to his canvas--still careful not to look in her direction--she said, suggestively, "I suppose you could change the face so that no one would know it was I who posed." The man remembered her carefully acquired reputation for modesty, but held to his purpose, saying, as if considering the question seriously, "Oh, as for that part; it could be managed with perfect safety." Then, suddenly, he turned his eyes upon her face, with a gaze so sharp and piercing that the blood slowly colored neck and cheek.
But the painter did not wait for the blush.

He had seen what he wanted and was at work--with the almost savage intensity that had marked his manner while he had worked upon the portrait of Sibyl Andres.
And so, day after day, as he painted, again, the portrait of the woman who Conrad Lagrange fancifully called "The Age," the artist permitted her to betray her real self--the self that was so commonly hidden from the world, under the mask of a pretended culture, and the cloak of a fraudulent refinement.

He led her to talk of the world in which she lived--of the scandals and intrigues among those of her class who hold such enviable positions in life.

He drew from her the philosophies and beliefs and religions of her kind.

He encouraged her to talk of art--to give her understanding of the world of artists as she knew it, and to express her real opinions and tastes in pictures and books.