.

He went out to lunch and Thea thought the subject closed. But late in
the afternoon, when he was taking his dyspepsia tablet and a glass of
water between lessons, he looked up and said in a voice ironically
coaxing:--

"Miss Kronborg, I wish you would tell me why you hate Jessie."

Taken by surprise Thea put down the score she was reading and answered
before she knew what she was saying, "I hate her for the sake of what I
used to think a singer might be."

Bowers balanced the tablet on the end of his long forefinger and
whistled softly. "And how did you form your conception of what a singer
ought to be?" he asked.

"I don't know." Thea flushed and spoke under her breath; "but I suppose
I got most of it from Harsanyi."

Bowers made no comment upon this reply, but opened the door for the next
pupil, who was waiting in the reception-room.

It was dark when Thea left the studio that night. She knew she had
offended Bowers. Somehow she had hurt herself, too. She felt unequal to
the boarding-house table, the sneaking divinity student who sat next her
and had tried to kiss her on the stairs last night. She went over to the
waterside of Michigan Avenue and walked along beside the lake. It was a
clear, frosty winter night. The great empty space over the water was
restful and spoke of freedom. If she had any money at all, she would go
away. The stars glittered over the wide black water. She looked up at
them wearily and shook her head. She believed that what she felt was
despair, but it was only one of the forms of hope. She felt, indeed, as
if she were bidding the stars good-bye; but she was renewing a promise.
Though their challenge is universal and eternal, the stars get no answer
but that,--the brief light flashed back to them from the eyes of the
young who unaccountably aspire.

The rich, noisy, city, fat with food and drink, is a spent thing; its
chief concern is its digestion and its little game of hide-and-seek with
the undertaker. Money and office and success are the consolations of
impotence. Fortune turns kind to such solid people and lets them suck
their bone in peace. She flecks her whip upon flesh that is more alive,
upon that stream of hungry boys and girls who tramp the streets of every
city, recognizable by their pride and discontent, who are the Future,
and who possess the treasure of creative power.

III

WHILE her living arrangements were so casual and fortuitous, Bowers's
studio was the