but I mean to go,
whatever the weather chooses to say about it."

"_Parbleu_! But what has come to you, Quita? You are infatuated with
that granite-natured Scotchman!"

"And if I am . . . I have every right to be."

Her gaze had returned to the vigorous outline on the easel, and her
voice softened to an unconscious tenderness, peculiarly exasperating to
a man in Michael's mixed frame of mind.

"_Naturellement_!" he answered with a shrug. "Being a woman, you have
divine right to monopolise a man,--if the man is fool enough to submit
to it. Nature is determined that you women shall not escape your real
trade. That is why she takes care to make every one of you a bourgeois
at heart. And all these years I have cherished the delusion that you,
at least, were a genuine artist!"

"So I am. Every whit as much as yourself."

"And also--a genuine woman?"

"I hope so."

Michael smiled--a smile of superior knowledge.

"One cannot serve two masters, _ma chere_. That's where the
complication comes in, when an artist happens also to be a woman. The
creative force, mental or physical, is a master-force. Only a
superhuman vitality can accomplish both with any hope of success.
Succumb to your womanhood, and there's an end of your Art--_voila
tout_."

"But no, Michel. I won't believe that." She spoke stoutly, though
cold fear was upon her that a germ of truth lurked in his statement.

"Believe it or not, as you please. You are on the high-road to make
the discovery for yourself, and you will find it a case of no
compromise. One of the two must predominate. You will either become
an amateur artist or an amateur wife and mother. Which do you suppose
it will be?"

She shut her paint-box with an impatient snap.

"I really don't know. I am not in the mood for abstract speculation."

"No. You are in the mood for concrete love-making; and in pursuit of
it, you're ready to face a drenching, to leave me is the worst possible
company, without a sisterly qualm, and without even troubling to put my
razor in your pocket."

"Don't talk melodramatic nonsense," she rebuked him sharply. Then pity
and tenderness prevailed. "If it's really as bad as that, _mon cher_,
why on earth didn't you take yesterday's chance, and ask Elsie to be
your wife? I believe she would have said 'Yes.'"

"So do I. Therefore I preferred not to ask her. Still--it's none the
less maddening that because you women have this incurable mania