is.”

[41]

But he was not convinced. He stood staring gloomily out over the lake, as if he were seeing formidable enemies approaching under cover of the thick, blue mist. “I’ve got to go in a few minutes,” said he almost curtly. “I’ve arranged for a trip to town, as I can’t work to-day.”

“To sell a picture?”

“I haven’t any. Those from the other side aren’t here yet. Anyhow, I’m going to show only American work.”

A long pause—an uncomfortable pause. Then she said in her artless, impersonal way: “I should think a wife would be of great assistance to an artist——”

“As a roper-in, you mean?” he interrupted fiercely. “No real painter would stoop to anything so degrading to his art and to himself.”

“Yet you’ve told me of all sorts of queer schemes you’ve put up to lure in buyers,” she said.

“An artist who marries is a fool—and worse,” said he sourly. “If he’s happily married his imagination is smothered to death. If he’s unhappily married it’s stabbed to death.”

She listened sweetly and patiently. “The subject[42] of marriage is on my mind to-day,” said she with confiding and childlike innocence.

[42]

“It usually is on the minds of young girls,” said he, big and frowning.

“But my—my affairs are near the crisis,” proceeded she. “And one reason I came through the rain was that I wanted your advice.”

He shook his big frame, making the water fly as from the fur of a great, shaggy dog that has been in swimming. “I don’t give advice,” said he ungraciously. “When you give advice you make yourself responsible for the consequences. Besides, I don’t know enough about you to be able to judge.”

Her look up at him was the essence of implicit trust. “You know more about me than anyone in the world—more than I know myself.”

He laughed shortly. “I know nothing about you. Girls are not in my line.”

Her pretty face, the prettier for the dreariness all round, now took on an expression of hurt feelings. “What’s the matter, Chang?” she asked gently. “You’re not a bit friendly to-day.”

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