would rather go up in the
mountains near Christina's bungalow this summer, than back to see
Angela. The memory of that precious creature was, under the stress and
excitement of metropolitan life, becoming a little tarnished. His
recollections of her were as delightful as ever, as redolent of beauty,
but he was beginning to wonder. The smart crowd in New York was composed
of a different type. Angela was sweet and lovely, but would she fit in?

Meanwhile Miriam Finch with her subtle eclecticism continued her
education of Eugene. She was as good as a school. He would sit and
listen to her descriptions of plays, her appreciation of books, her
summing up of current philosophies, and he would almost feel himself
growing. She knew so many people, could tell him where to go to see just
such and such an important thing. All the startling personalities, the
worth while preachers, the new actors, somehow she knew all about them.

"Now, Eugene," she would exclaim on seeing him, "you positively must go
and see Haydon Boyd in 'The Signet,'" or--"see Elmina Deming in her new
dances," or--"look at the pictures of Winslow Homer that are being shown
at Knoedler's."

She would explain with exactness why she wanted him to see them, what
she thought they would do for him. She frankly confessed to him that she
considered him a genius and always insisted on knowing what new thing he
was doing. When any work of his appeared and she liked it she was swift
to tell him. He almost felt as if he owned her room and herself, as if
all that she was--her ideas, her friends, her experiences--belonged to
him. He could go and draw on them by sitting at her feet or going with
her somewhere. When spring came she liked to walk with him, to listen to
his comments on nature and life.

"That's splendid!" she would exclaim. "Now, why don't you write that?"
or "why don't you paint that?"

He showed her some of his poems once and she had made copies of them and
pasted them in a book of what she called exceptional things. So he was
coddled by her.

In another way Christina was equally nice. She was fond of telling
Eugene how much she thought of him, how nice she thought he was. "You're
so big and smarty," she said to him once, affectionately, pinioning his
arms and looking into his eyes. "I like the way you part your hair, too!
You're kind o' like an artist ought to be!"

"That's the way to spoil me," he replied. "Let me tell you how nice you
are. Want to