ed him her dear
boy.

"I'm fully aware," he said, ruefully, "that I've behaved like a
heaven-afflicted idiot, and I'd better go."

"No, you shall not go. You shall stay. I wish it. Sit down--here."

She patted the sofa beside her, and he obeyed mechanically.

"Poor, poor Ted! I _do_ forgive you. We will never misunderstand each
other again--never. And now I want to talk to you. What distressed me so
much just now was not anything that you said or thought about _me_, but
the shocking way you treat yourself and what is best in you. Can't you
understand it? You know how I believe in you and hope for you, and it
was your affectation of indifference to things which are a religion to
me--as they are to you--that cut me to the heart."

She had worked herself up till she believed firmly in this little
fiction. Yes, those tears were tears of pure altruism--tears not of
wounded vanity and self-love, but of compassion for an erring genius.

She drew back her head proudly and looked him full in the face. Then she
continued, in a subdued voice, with a certain incisive tremor in it, the
voice that is usually expressive of the deeper emotions--

"You know, and I know, that there is nothing worth caring about except
art. Then why pretend to despise it as you do? And Katherine's every bit
as bad as you are,--she encourages you. I know--what perhaps she
doesn't--that you have great enthusiasms, great ideals; but you are
unfaithful to them. You laughed at me; you know you did----"

("I didn't," from Ted.)

"----because I'm trying to make my life beautiful. You're led away by
your strong sense of humour, till you see something ridiculous in the
loveliest and noblest things" (Ted's eyes wandered in spite of himself
to the little lady in terra-cotta). "I know why: you're afraid of being
sentimental. But if people have feelings, why should they be ashamed of
them? Why should they mind showing them? Now I want you to promise me
that, from this day forth, you'll take yourself and your art seriously;
that you'll work hard--you've been idling shamefully lately" (oh,
Audrey! whose fault was that?)--"and finish some great picture before
the year's out" (he had only five weeks to do it in, but that was a
detail). "Now promise."

"I--I'll promise anything," stammered the miserable Ted, "if only
you'll look at me like that--sometimes, say between the hours of seven
and eight in the evening."

"Ridiculous baby! Now we must see about the pi