My dear girl,
my grandmother preached that same thing to me from the day I was old
enough to reason, to the day she died. But I tell you, Weir, I have
not got it in me. I have the ambition and the desire--yes; but no
marked ability of any sort. Some day, when we are ready to settle
down, I will write, and publish what I write. Men will grant me a
certain standing as a thinker, I believe, and perhaps they will also
give me credit for a certain nice use of words; I have made a study of
literary style all my life. But that is the most I shall ever attain.
I am not a man of any genius or originality, and you may as well make
up your mind to the inevitable at once."

"Harold," said Weir, without taking the slightest notice of his
outburst, "do you remember that extraordinary experience of yours that
night in Paris? I believe you have the soul of a poet in you, only as
yet your brain hasn't got it under control. Did you ever read the life
of Alfieri? He experienced the same desire to write, over and over
again, but could accomplish nothing until after he was thirty.
Disraeli illustrated his struggles for speech in 'Contarini Fleming'
most graphically, you remember."

"Neither Alfieri nor Contarini Fleming ever had any such experience as
mine. Their impulse to write was not only a mental concept as well as
a spiritual longing, but it was abiding. I never really experienced
a desire to write poetry except on that night. I have occasionally
wished that I had the ability, but common-sense withheld me from
brooding over the impossible. The experience of that night is one
which can be explained by no ordinary methods. I can make nothing
of it, and for that reason I prefer not to speak of it. I abominate
mysteries."

"Well," she said, "some day I believe it will be explained. I believe
it was nothing more than an extraordinarily strong impulse to write,
and that you exaggerate it into the supernatural as you look back upon
it. I did not think so when you first told me; you were so dramatic
that you carried me off my feet, and I was an actor in the scene. But
that is the way I look at it now, and I believe I am correct."

"It may be," said Dartmouth, moodily, "but I hope it won't affect me
that way again, that is all." He caught her suddenly to him and kissed
her. "Let us be contented as we are," he said. "Ambition is love's
worst enemy. Geniuses do not make their wives happy."

"They do when their wives understand and are in a