f course you will. You'll make him out of whole cloth if it's
necessary. Our ideals are really the same when you come to analyze my
wider outlook."

The artist paused and laughed softly.

"The same?" the girl asked incredulously.

"Certainly. Mine is based on intelligence, however--yours on blind
instinct perverted and twisted by the idiotic fiction you read morning,
noon and night."

"I don't see it," Mary answered emphatically. "Your ideal is fame,
achievement, the applause of the world--mine just a home and a baby----"

Jane laughed softly.

"And that's all you know about me?"

"Isn't it true?"

"You've been in this room five years, haven't you?" the older girl asked
musingly.

"Yes----"

"And though you've kept your lamp trimmed and burning, you haven't yet
seen a man whom you could recognize as your equal."

"I'm only twenty-four."

"In these five years I've met a hundred men my equal."

"And smashed the conventions of Society whenever you saw fit."

"Without breaking a single law of reason or common-sense. In the
meantime I've met two men who have really made love to me. I thought I
loved one of them--until I met the other. The second proved himself to
be an unprincipled scoundrel. If I had held your views of life and hated
my work, I would have married this man and lived to awake in a prison
whose only door was Death. But I loved my work. Life meant more than
one man who was not worth an hour's tears. I turned to my studio and he
slipped back into the gutter where he belonged. I'll meet MY Fate
some day, too, dear. I'm waiting and watching--but with clear eyes
and unafraid. I'll know mine when he comes, I shall not be blinded by
passion or the fear of drudgery. Can't you see this bigger world of
realities?"

The dimple flashed again in the smooth red cheek.

"It's not for me, Jane. I'm just a modest little home body. I'll bide my
time----"

"And eat your foolish heart out here between the narrow walls of this
cell you've built for yourself. I should think you'd die living here
alone."

The girl flushed.

"I'm not lonely----"

"Don't fib! I know better. Your birds and kitten occupy daily about
thirty minutes of the time that's your own. What do you do with the rest
of it?"

"Sit by my window, watch the crowds stream through the streets below,
read and dream and think----"

"Yes--read love stories and dream about your Knight."

"Well?"

"It's morbid and unhealthy. You've hedged yo