In spite of the reassurance that he would be clothed Pat approached the rendezvous with uneasiness. In his young and impressionable years he had looked through a peep-hole into a machine where two dozen postcards slapped before his eyes in sequence. The story unfolded was Fun in an Artist’s Studio. Even now with the strip tease a legalized municipal project, he was a little shocked at the remembrance, and when he presented himself next day at the Princess’s bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel it would not have surprised him if she had met him in a turkish towel. He was disappointed. She wore a smock and her black hair was brushed straight back like a boy’s.

Pat had stopped off for a couple of drinks on the way, but his first words: ‘How’ya Duchess?’ failed to set a jovial note for the occasion.

‘Well, Mr Hobby,’ she said coolly, ‘it’s nice of you to spare me an afternoon.’

‘We don’t work too hard in Hollywood,’ he assured her. ‘Everything is “Ma?ana”— in Spanish that means tomorrow.’

She led him forthwith into a rear apartment where an easel stood on a square of canvas by the window. There was a couch and they sat down.

‘I want to get used to you for a minute,’ she said. ‘Did you ever pose before?’

‘Do I look that way?’ He winked, and when she smiled he felt better and asked: ‘You haven’t got a drink around, have you?’

The Princess hesitated. She had wanted him to look as if he needed one. Compromising, she went to the ice box and fixed him a small highball. She returned to find that he had taken off his coat and tie and lay informally upon the couch.

‘That is better,’ the Princess said. ‘That shirt you’re wearing. I think they make them for Hollywood — like the special prints they make for Ceylon and Guatemala. Now drink this and we’ll get to work.’

‘Why don’t you have a drink too and make it friendly?’ Pat suggested.

‘I had one in the pantry,’ she lied.

‘Married woman?’ he asked.

‘I have been married. Now would you mind sitting on this stool?’

Reluctantly Pat got up, took down the highball, somewhat thwarted by the thin taste, and moved to the stool. ‘Now sit very still,’ she said.

He sat silent as she worked. It was three o’clock. They were running the third race at Santa Anita and he had ten bucks on the nose. That made sixty he owed Louie, the studio bookie, and Louie stood determinedly beside him at the pay window every Thursday. This dame had good legs under the easel — her red lips pleased him and the way her bare arms moved as she worked. Once upon a time he wouldn’t have looked at a woman over twenty-five, unless it was a secretary right in the office with him. But the kids you saw around now were snooty — always talking about calling the police.

‘Please sit still, Mr Hobby.’

‘What say we knock off,’ he suggested. ‘This work makes you thirsty.’

The Princess had been painting half an hour. Now she stopped and stared at him a moment.

‘Mr Hobby, you were loaned me by Mr DeTinc. Why don’t you act just as if you were working over at the studio? I’ll be through in another half-hour.’

‘What do I get out of it?’ he demanded, ‘I’m no poser — I’m a writer.’

‘Your studio salary has not stopped,’ she said, resuming her work. ‘What does it matter if Mr DeTinc wants you to do this?’

‘It’s different. You’re a dame. I’ve got my self-respect to think of.’

‘What do you expect me to do — flirt with you?’

‘No — that’s old stuff. But I thought we could sit around and have a drink.’

‘Perhaps later,’ she said, and then, ‘Is this harder work than the studio? Am I so difficult to look at?’

‘I don’t mind looking at you but why couldn’t we sit on the sofa?’

‘You don’t sit on the sofa at the studio.’

‘Sure you do. Listen, if you tried all the doors in the Writers’ Building you’d find a lot of them locked and don’t you forget it.’

She stepped back and squinted at him.

‘Locked? To be undisturbed?’ She put down her brush. ‘I’ll get you a drink.’

When she returned she stopped for a moment in the doorway — Pat had removed his shirt and stood rather sheepishl............