fully, "that is very often the case with a man who is
better equipped to act than to tell with pen or pencil how others act.
I'm beginning to be afraid that I'm that sort, because I'm afraid that
I get more enjoyment out of doing things than in explaining with
pencil and paint how they are done."

But Rue Carew, seated on the arm of her chair, slowly shook her head:

"I don't think that those are the only alternatives; do you?"

"What other is there?"

She said, a little shyly:

"I think it is all right to _do_ things if you like; make exact
pictures of how things are done if you choose; but it seems to me that
if one really has anything to say, one should show in one's pictures
how things _might_ be or _ought_ to be. Don't you?"

He seemed surprised and interested in her logic, and she took courage
to speak again in her pretty, deprecating way:

"If the function of painting and literature is to reflect reality, a
mirror would do as well, wouldn't it? But to reflect what might be or
what ought to be requires something more, doesn't it?"

"Imagination. Yes."

"A mind, anyway.... That is what I have thought; but I'm not at all
sure I am right."

"I don't know. The mind ought to be a mirror reflecting only the
essentials of reality."

"And _that_ requires imagination, doesn't it?" she asked. "You see you
have put it much better than I have."

"Have I?" he returned, smiling. "After a while you'll persuade me that
I possess your imagination, Rue. But I don't."

"You do, Jim----"

"I'm sorry; I don't. You construct, I copy; you create, I ring changes
on what already is; you dissect, I skate over the surface of
things--Oh, Lord! I don't know what's lacking in me!" he added with
gay pretence of despair which possibly was less feigned than real.
"But I know this, Rue Carew! I'd rather experience something
interesting than make a picture of it. And I suppose that confession
is fatal."

"Why, Jim?"

"Because with me the pleasures of reality are substituted for the
pleasures of imagination. Not that I don't like to draw and paint. But
my ambition in painting is and always has been bounded by the visible.
And, although that does not prevent me from appreciation--from
understanding and admiring your work, for example--it sets an
impregnable limit to any such aspiration on my part----"

His mobile and youthful features had become very grave; he stood a
moment with lowered head as though what he was thinking of d