anything--that takes you way above
stupid people. Stupid people are worse than thieves."

"You describe the intoxication, or rather, to give it a better name, the
inspiration of genius," said Winthrop; "all artists feel this
inspiration at times--musicians, poets, painters, sculptors, all who
have in them a spark, great or small, of the creative fire; even I, when
with such persons--as by good fortune I have been once or twice--have
been able to comprehend a little of it, have caught, by reflection at
least, a tinge of its glow."

"Oh, if _you_ have felt it, it is not at all what I mean," answered
Garda, with one of her sudden laughs. She drew her hand from his arm,
and walked down the slope across the lower level towards the magnolias.

As soon as her back was turned, Dr. Kirby tapped Winthrop on the back
impressively, and raising himself on tiptoe, spoke in his ear. "She has
never, sir, been near--I may say, indeed, that she has never _seen_--an
intoxicated person in her life." He then came down to earth again, and
folding his arms, surveyed the northerner challengingly.

"Of course I understood that," Winthrop answered.

When Garda reached the dark shade under the great trees she paused and
turned. Winthrop had followed her. She gave him a bright smile as he
joined her. "I wanted to see if you would come," she said, with her
usual frankness.

"Of course I came; what did you suppose I would do?"

"I did not know, that was what I wanted to find out. You are so
different, I should never know."

"Different from whom? From your four persons about here? I assure you
that I am not different, I have no such pretension; your four are
different, perhaps, but I am like five thousand, fifty thousand,
others--as you will see for yourself when you come north."

"I don't believe it," said Garda, beginning to retrace her steps. She
looked at him reflectively, then added, "I don't believe they are like
you."

"What is it in me that you dislike so much?"

"Oh, I haven't thought whether I dislike it or not," responded Garda,
with what he called in his own mind her sweet indifference. "What I
meant was simply that I do not believe there are fifty thousand, or
five thousand, or even five hundred other men, who are as cold as you
are."

"Do I strike you in that way?"

"Yes; but of course you cannot help it, it is probably a part of your
nature--this coldness," said the girl, excusingly. "It was that which
made me say tha