ou more pleasure," he went on. "But there! I've
been able to do little enough for you. Well do I know it"

"You've done a lot for me. You've been so good."

"It's a pity we should have fallen out over a stranger. But I know I am
too free with my tongue."

"Oh, Mr. James!"

"Never mind, lassie. I'm only an old man, and you're young; you must go
your own way--"

"Oh, Mr. James!" She rose and ran round the table to his side; and at
the close sight of her, excited and yet muted with pity, brilliant as
sunset but soft as light rain, the honest thing in him forgot the
spurious scene he was carpentering. He exclaimed solemnly, "Nelly, you
are very beautiful."

She was startled. "Me, beautiful?"

"Aye," he said, "beautiful."

For a moment she pondered over it almost stupidly. Then she put her hand
on Mr. James's shoulder and shook him; now that her sexual feelings were
focussed on one man she treated all other men with a sexless familiarity
that to those who did not understand might have seemed shameless and a
little mad. "Am I beautiful?" she asked searchingly.

"How many times do you want me to say it?" he said.

"But how beautiful?" she pursued. "Like a picture in the National
Gallery? Or like one of those actresses? Now isn't that a queer thing?
I'm all for art as a general thing, but I'd much rather be like an
actress. Tell me, which am I like?"

"You're like both. That's where you score."

She caught her breath with a sob. "You're not laughing at me?"

"Get up on your chair and look in the glass over the mantelpiece."

She stepped up, and with a flush and a raising of the chin as if she
were doing something much more radical than looking in a mirror, as if,
indeed, she were stripping herself quite naked, she faced her image.

"You've never looked at yourself before," said the old man.

"'Deed I have," she snapped. "How do you think I put my hat on
straight?"

"It never is," he retorted, and repeated grimly and exultingly, "You've
never looked at yourself before."

She looked obliquely at her reflection and ran her hands ashamedly up
and down her body, and tried for a word and failed.

"Are you not beautiful?" he said.

"Imphm. There's no denying I'm effective," she admitted tartly, and
stepped down and stood for a moment shivering as if she had done
something distasteful. And then climbed on to the chair again. "In
evening dress, like the one Sarah Bernhardt wore in La Dame aux
Camelias, I dare s