hen he had finished. "You
love writing so, and I am sure you would succeed. You could rise in
journalism and make a name for yourself. There are a number of great
special correspondents. Their salaries are large, and their field is the
world. They are sent everywhere, to the heart of Africa, like Stanley,
or to interview the Pope, or to explore unknown Thibet."

"Then you don't like my essay?" he rejoined. "You believe that I have
some show in journalism but none in literature?"

"No, no; I do like it. It reads well. But I am afraid it's over the
heads of your readers. At least it is over mine. It sounds beautiful,
but I don't understand it. Your scientific slang is beyond me. You are
an extremist, you know, dear, and what may be intelligible to you may not
be intelligible to the rest of us."

"I imagine it's the philosophic slang that bothers you," was all he could
say.

He was flaming from the fresh reading of the ripest thought he had
expressed, and her verdict stunned him.

"No matter how poorly it is done," he persisted, "don't you see anything
in it?--in the thought of it, I mean?"

She shook her head.

"No, it is so different from anything I have read. I read Maeterlinck
and understand him--"

"His mysticism, you understand that?" Martin flashed out.

"Yes, but this of yours, which is supposed to be an attack upon him, I
don't understand. Of course, if originality counts--"

He stopped her with an impatient gesture that was not followed by speech.
He became suddenly aware that she was speaking and that she had been
speaking for some time.

"After all, your writing has been a toy to you," she was saying. "Surely
you have played with it long enough. It is time to take up life
seriously--_our_ life, Martin. Hitherto you have lived solely your own."

"You want me to go to work?" he asked.

"Yes. Father has offered--"

"I understand all that," he broke in; "but what I want to know is whether
or not you have lost faith in me?"

She pressed his hand mutely, her eyes dim.

"In your writing, dear," she admitted in a half-whisper.

"You've read lots of my stuff," he went on brutally. "What do you think
of it? Is it utterly hopeless? How does it compare with other men's
work?"

"But they sell theirs, and you--don't."

"That doesn't answer my question. Do you think that literature is not at
all my vocation?"

"Then I will answer." She steeled herself to do it. "I don't think