"That's just it," said he; "that's why you ought to be ashamed of yourself. And anyway you are a child. All girls say they aren't until they get into a mess of some sort, and then they excuse themselves to themselves and everybody else by protesting that they were. 'I was so young. I didn't know,' and all that rot."

"Blizzard," said Barbara, "is quiet, polite, and a good talker. He comes, he sits for me, and he goes away."

The butler having left the room, Wilmot fixed his rather tired eyes on Barbara's face, and spoke with a certain earnest tenderness. "Barbs," he said, "take it from me, happiness doesn't lie where you think it does. I think the very highest achievements of the very greatest artists haven't brought happiness. Look here, old dear; put a limit to your ambition. Say that by a certain date you'll either succeed and quit, or fail and quit, and then see if you can't take a little more interest in your own people, in your own heart--even in me."

"Wilmot," she said seriously, "if I fail with my head of Blizzard, I think I shall give up."

"Wouldn't it be better," he pleaded, "to give up now? And then, you know, you could always say if only you'd kept on you would have made a masterpiece."

"And who would believe that?"

"I!" said Wilmot. "It's easy for me to believe anything wonderful of you. It always has been."

"And a moment ago," she smiled, "you called me a little fool and said you'd tell my father on me."

She rose, still smiling, and he followed her into the library.

"Are all the studios in your building occupied?" he asked.

"They are," said Barbara, "and they aren't. Kelting, who has the ground floor, has gone abroad. And Updyke, who has the third floor, has been in Bermuda all winter." She sank into a deep leather chair that half swallowed her.

"There's a janitor?"

"No. There's a janitress, a friendly old lady, quite deaf. She has seen infinitely better days."

"To all intents and purposes, then," said Wilmot, and the trouble that he felt showed in his face, "it's 

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