rty-three years of age--no
deception, Morgan--and, knowing you have lived twenty-eight, I
naturally suspect the existence of those chapters, you darling sphinx.
And when I suddenly come across a poem from your pen about a sweet
little girl, my suspicion becomes almost a certainty."

He could not help laughing.

"That sweet little girl is too concrete, too much away from your
metaphysical manner, to be a mere creation of your brain. What vexed
me particularly was that the most stupid woman I know--I mean my dear
friend Laura--admired the thing and called it a gem. Now I don't like
my monopoly threatened in that way. I have always prayed against your
own prayer. I don't want the world at large to admire you--yet. I want
you, disgusted with the world's non-acceptance of you, to find
consolation in my love. There is a fair proposal for you, Morgan. Love
me, marry me--and after that you may become as great as you like. Your
poetry as yet is my friend, but I begin to feel afraid of it when you
start pictures of sweet little girls."

He did not take her the least bit seriously--he never did. Her
occasional courtship of him had been always so light and airy, so
dispassionately epigrammatic, that he looked on it as mere whimsical
banter and rather good amusement. She had plagued him into consenting
to that kiss on the forehead which she gave him each time they met,
referring to it constantly as an advantage won by hard effort. The
circumstance of their first meeting had been commonplace enough--a
chance introduction at an afternoon tea. They were friends whilst yet
utter strangers to each other, for a mutual personal magnetism had
acted immediately. He understood that her playfulness did but conceal
fine qualities of character that would have pleased even the
aphoristic moralist, whose conception of the ideal woman she
mercilessly outraged. That she had really understood and appreciated
his work naturally counted a good deal in her favour. He knew her
worth, but of course he did not want to marry her. If to-day there was
a more earnest ring than usual in her love-making, he had got too
indurated to it to believe in it.

"Who _is_ the sweet little girl?" she insisted. "I repeat, I am
jealous. This is my first experience of that queer emotion, for you
are the first man I have ever loved."

He found this most amusing of all.

"Really, Morgan, it is perfectly harassing to have one's tragedy taken
for light comedy. You know m