vied. _C'est dur!_"

"I am bewildered!" cried Hadria at last, in a voice that seemed to her
to come from somewhere a long way off. The whole scene had acquired the
character of a dream. The figures moved through miles of clear distance.
Her impressions were chaotic. While a strange, deep confirmation of the
musician's words, seemed to stir within her as if they had long been
familiar, her mind entirely refused credence.

He had gone too far. Had he said a remarkable talent, but----

Yet was it not, after all, possible? Nature scattered her gifts wildly
and cruelly: cruelly, because she cared not into what cramped nooks and
crannies she poured her maddening explosive: cruelly, because she hurled
this fire from heaven with indiscriminate hand, to set alight one dared
not guess how many chained martyrs at their stakes. Nature did not pick
and choose the subjects of her wilful ministrations. She seemed to
scatter at random, out of sheer _gaiete de coeur_, as Jouffroy had said,
and if some golden grain chanced to be gleaming in this soul or that,
what cause for astonishment? The rest might be the worst of dross. As
well might the chance occur to one of Nature's children as to another.
She did not bestow even one golden grain for nothing, _bien sur_; she
meant to be paid back with interest. Just one bright bead of the whole
vast circlet of the truth: perhaps it was hers, but more likely that
these kind friends had been misled by their sympathy.

M. Jouffroy came next day to have a long talk with Hadria about her work
and her methods. He was absolutely confident of what he had said, but he
was emphatic regarding the necessity for work; steady, uninterrupted
work. Everything must be subservient to the one aim. If she contemplated
anything short of complete dedication to her art--well (he shrugged his
shoulders), it would be better to amuse herself. There could be no
half-measures with art. True, there were thousands of people who
practised a little of this and a little of that, but Art would endure no
such disrespect. It was the affair of a lifetime. He had known many
women with great talent, but, alas! they had not persistence. Only last
year a charming, beautiful young woman, with--_mon Dieu!_--a talent that
might have placed her on the topmost rank of singers, had married
against the fervent entreaties of Jouffroy, and now--he shrugged his
shoulders with a gesture of pitying contempt--"_elle est mere tout
simplement_." He