there. But I’ve got to draw for magazines and illustrated papers; got to make a living, you see. I teach at the Art League, too.”

“How happy you must be in your career!” she said, devoutly meaning it, knowing no better than to say it.

“It’s a business,” he corrected her, kindly.

“But—yes—but it is art, too.”

“Oh, art!” he laughed. It was the fashion that year to shrug when art was mentioned—reaction from too much gabble.

“We don’t busy ourselves with art; we busy ourselves with business. When they use my stuff I feel I’m getting on. You see,” he admitted with reluctant honesty, “I’m young at it yet—I haven’t had very much of my stuff in magazines yet.”

After a silence, cursed by an instinctive truthfulness which always spoiled any little plan to swagger:

“I’ve had several—well, about a dozen pictures reproduced.”

One picture accepted by any magazine would have awed her sufficiently. The mere fact that he was an artist had been enough to impress her. 43

43

“Do you care for that sort of thing—drawing, painting, I mean?” he inquired kindly.

She drew a quick breath, steadied her voice, and said she did.

“Perhaps you may turn out stuff yourself some day.”

She scarcely knew how to take the word “stuff.” Vaguely she surmised it to be professional vernacular.

She admitted shyly that she cared for nothing so much as drawing, that she longed for instruction, but that such a dream was hopeless.

At first he did not comprehend that poverty barred the way to her; he urged her to cultivate her talent, bestowed advice concerning the Art League, boarding houses, studios, ways, means, and ends, until she felt obliged to tell him how far beyond her means such magic splendours lay.

He remained silent, sorry for her, thinking also that the chances were against her having any particular talent, consoling a heart that was unusually sympathetic and tender with the 

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