he
would be sure of it. He wasn't really sure of it until then, not a bit
surer than she was now.

No; he was always sure of it. It was himself he was not sure of; himself
that he put to the test.

And it was himself that he had carried through it. He had lived face to
face with all the corporeal horrors; he had handled them, tasted them,
he, the man without a skin, with every sense, every nerve in him
exposed, exquisitely susceptible to torture. And he had come through it
all as through a thing insubstantial, a thing that gave way before his
soul and its exultant, processional vision of God.

"The absurd thing is that after all I haven't grown a skin. I'm _still_
afraid of the sight of blood."

"So I suppose _I_ shall go on being afraid."

"Probably. But you won't turn tail any more than I should. _You_ never
ran away."

"There are worse things than running away. All the things that go on
inside you, the cruel, dreadful things; the cowardices and treacheries.
Things that come of never being alone. I have to sit up at night to be
alone."

"My child, you mustn't. It's simply criminal."

"If I didn't," she said, "I should never get it in."

He understood her to be alluding thus vaguely to her gift.

"I know it's criminal, with Papa depending on me, and yet I do it.
Sometimes I'm up half the night, hammering and hammering at my own
things; things, I mean, that won't sell, just to gratify my vanity in
having done them."

"To satisfy your instinct for perfection. God made you an artist."

She sighed. "He's made me so many things besides. That's where the
misery comes in."

"And a precious poor artist you'd be if he hadn't, and if the misery
didn't come in."

She shook her head, superior in her sad wisdom. "Misery's all very well
for the big, tragic people like Nina, who can make something out of it.
Why throw it away on a wretched, clever little imp like me?"

"And if _you_'re being hammered at to satisfy an instinct for perfection
that you're not aware of----?"

She shook her head again.

"I'm certainly not aware of it. Still, I can understand that. I mean I
can understand an instinct for perfection making shots in the dark and
trying things too big for it and their not coming off. But--look at
Papa."

She held her hands out helplessly. The gesture smote his heart.

"If Papa had been one of its experiments--but he wasn't. It had got him
all right at first. You've no idea how nice Papa was. You've o