can do
this properly; and Elisabeth was as yet under the influence of that
creative glamour which made her see her latest picture as it should be
rather than as it was.

"Oh, yes, you will; you will fulfil my ideal of you yet. I cherish no
doubts on that score."

"I can't think what you see wrong in my picture," said Elisabeth
somewhat pettishly.

"I don't see anything wrong in it. Good gracious! I must have expressed
myself badly if I conveyed such an impression to you as that, and you
would indeed be justified in writing me down an ass. I think it is a
wonderfully clever picture--so clever that nobody but you could ever
paint a cleverer one."

"Well, I certainly couldn't. You must have formed an exaggerated
estimate of my artistic powers."

"I think not! You can, and will, paint a distinctly better picture some
day."

"In what way better?"

"Ah! there you have me. But I will try to tell you what I mean, though I
speak as a fool; and if I say anything very egregious, you must let my
ignorance be my excuse, and pardon the clumsy expression of my
intentions because they are so well meant. It doesn't seem to me to be
enough for anybody to do good work; they must go further, and do the
best possible work in their power. Nothing but one's best is really
worth the doing; the cult of the second-best is always a degrading form
of worship. Even though one man's second-best be intrinsically superior
to the best work of his fellows, he has nevertheless no right to offer
it to the world. He is guilty of an injustice both to himself and the
world in so doing."

"I don't agree with you. This is an age of results; and the world's
business is with the actual value of the thing done, rather than with
the capabilities of the man who did it."

"You are right in calling this an age of results, Miss Farringdon; but
that is the age's weakness and not its strength. The moment men begin to
judge by results, they judge unrighteous judgment. They confound the
great man with the successful man; the saint with the famous preacher;
the poet with the writer of popular music-hall songs."

"Then you think that we should all do our best, and not bother ourselves
too much as to results?"

"I go further than that; I think that the mere consideration of results
incapacitates us from doing our best work at all."

"I don't agree with you," repeated Elisabeth haughtily. But,
nevertheless, she did.

"I daresay I am wrong; but you asked me