one day, "you're so comfortable."

"Am I?"

"I think that's why I married you."

"So many men marry for that reason."

"Jane, Jane, how you do prick my bubbles of conceit. They snap around me
all the time."

"It's quite unintentional," she smilingly protested.

"So much the worse. Just how conceited do you think me, Jane?"

"I've known one man _more_ conceited."

"Jane, did I say you were comfortable?"

"I don't want to be _too_ comfortable. That's dull, don't you think?"

"Don't worry about being dull."

She sewed for a while, and he painted.

"You're getting very handsome," he remarked casually.

"Why not? I'm well, and so content."

"Are you contented, Jane?"

"Like a cat in the sun. I have a saucer of cream three times a day, and
a coloured ball to play with."

"And only a puppy, named Jerry, to bother you?"

"I don't mind him. I just stretch and yawn when he barks at me," she
laughed.

"I'll paint you with long slits in your eyes, if you don't look out," he
threatened.

One day Jane spoke of Bobs and her hope that she would come and stay
with them.

"Ask her by all means, but I doubt if she will come. She has it in for
me."

"She needs rest and normal living. She's all nerves on edge. She's done
a big piece of work, enough to wear any one out."

"She has lots of talent."

"She has genius, Jerry."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"I would. Martin Christiansen says this 'Woman' group is a masterpiece.
He ranked her with Manship and the best of the young sculptors."

"What do you know about young sculptors?"

"Not much. I've been studying sculpture this winter, especially the
moderns, with Bobs."

"What do you think of them?" he asked curiously.

"They interest me extremely. I supposed that I did not respond to
sculpture, but these modern men are expressing thought, not merely form.
I have spent hours with the Rodin figures at the Metropolitan--hours of
refreshment."

"Is Christiansen going to make a critic of you?"

"No. He couldn't. I have no critical sense at all. I only respond to the
things I understand, or the things I vision spiritually, without
understanding."

"Have you interested yourself in painting, too?"

"Yes. Bobs and Mr. Christiansen both say that I react to the right
things for the most part. But I'm hopeless when it comes to some of the
old masters. Rubens, for instance. How I do hate his obese people! I
don't care how well he can paint, because I hate what he