d if he amounted to nothing, then what?

He sat there shy, silent, afraid, all the hardy boldness and business
preparedness and fighting capacity of the streets gone out of his mind
and heart. He looked across at his mother; not even she could help him.

So there settled upon him that terror of uncertainty about their gift
and their fate which is known only to the children of genius. For
throughout the region of art, as in the world of the physical, nature
brings forth all things from the seat of sensitiveness and the young of
both worlds appear on the rough earth unready.

"You _do_ wish to come?" the choir-master persisted in asking.

"Yes, sir," he replied barely, as though the words sealed his fate.

The visitor was gone, and they had talked everything over, and the
evening had ended, and it was long past his bedtime, and she waited for
him to come from the bedroom and say good night. Presently he ran in,
climbed into her lap, threw his arms around her neck and pressed his
cheek against hers.

"Now on this side," he said, holding her tightly, "and now on the other
side, and now on both sides and all around."

She, with jealous pangs at this goodnight hour, often thought already of
what a lover he would be when the time came--the time for her to be
pushed aside, to drop out. These last moments of every night were for
love; nothing lived in him but love. She said to herself that he was the
born lover.

As he now withdrew his arms, he sat looking into her eyes with his face
close to hers. Then leaning over, he began to measure his face upon her
face, starting with the forehead, and being very particular when he got
to the long eyelashes, then coming down past the nose. They were very
silly and merry about the measuring of the noses. The noses would not
fit the one upon the other, not being flat enough. He began to indulge
his mischievous, teasing mood:

"Suppose he doesn't like my voice!"

She laughed the idea to scorn.

"Suppose he wouldn't take me!"

"Ah, but he _will_ take you."

"If he wouldn't have me, you'd never want to see me any more, would
you?"

She strained him to her heart and rocked to and fro over him.

"This is what I could most have wished in all the world," she said,
holding him at arm's-length with idolatry.

"Not more than a fine house and servants and a greenhouse and a carriage
and horses and a _new_ piano--not more than everything you used to
have!"

"More than anything! Mor