We know little about her first days in Paris beyond the fact that she lived rather badly in a boarding house near the railway station. Also, she had no friends with money, and her family sent her nothing.

It was a Friday when Gray met her, an unseasonably warm Friday with a southern wind raising a white dust everywhere. Gray presented his card at the door, then found himself in a shabby room below the staircase. A few minutes later Zelle appeared in a pale blue dress with a ribbon in her hair. She was taller than he had expected, and oddly shy when he explained that he wanted her to pose for him.

"Under what circumstances?" she asked.

"In my studio."

She glanced at his hands. "Alone?"

"Well, yes."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question."

"But I—"

"I'm terribly sorry."

He would always remember the wind, an odd wind, perhaps even an African wind. Shutters were banging all over the neighborhood. People seemed confused. For a while he remained fixed at the window, watching bits of paper whirling below. Then he moved back to the easel and a botched landscape of poplars.

He worked quickly, almost desperately, unable to smear the paint on fast enough. He found that he couldn't seem to stop even when the darker tones began to spread too far, the green too thick.

Until the knock at the door.

He opened it without thinking. She was standing in the half-light, wearing that same pale dress, her hair still tied in a ribbon. He stepped back to let her enter, but apparently she did not intend to stay.

She said only, "I've changed my mind about posing. When shall I start?"

He glanced back at a waiting canvas. "How about tomorrow? Say, eight o'clock?"

She looked up, questioning. "Eight?"

"I'll need the light."

"Very well, but then it's thirty francs, not twenty."

Afterward it seemed that he could not keep from thinking about her, trying to recall the sound of her voice, the way she brushed her hair from her eyes. Toward dusk he left his studio and wandered again, moving with the evening crowds along the boulevard Saint-Germain. The air was moist and cool, particularly among the chestnut trees where in later dreams she would always be waiting for him.

She was very beautiful seated in a rectangle of sunlight, head cocked a little to one side. Even immediately after undressing she hadn't lost that sense of composure. She had simply walked across the room and sat down—obviously certain that he would be compelled to watch.