ngly.

Fanny recoiled at the idea with a primness that did credit to Winnebago.

"Clancy! Please! He's married."

"Now don't sneak, Fanny. And don't talk like an ingenue. So far, you've
outlined a life-plan that makes Becky Sharp look like a cooing dove. So
just answer this straight, will you?"

"Why, I suppose I attract him, as any man of his sort, with a wife like
that, would be attracted to a healthily alert woman, whose ideas match
his. And I wish you wouldn't talk to me like that. It hurts."

"I'm glad of that. I was afraid you'd passed that stage. Well now, how
about those sketches of yours? I suppose you know that they're as
good, in a crude, effective sort of way, as anything that's being done
to-day."

"Oh, nonsense!" But then she stopped, suddenly, and put both hands on
his arm, and looked up at him, her face radiant in the gray twilight.
"Do you really think they're good!"

"You bet they're good. There isn't a newspaper in the country that
couldn't use that kind of stuff. And there aren't three people in the
country who can do it. It isn't a case of being able to draw. It's being
able to see life in a peculiar light, and to throw that light so that
others get the glow. Those sketches I saw this morning are life, served
up raw. That's your gift, Fanny. Why the devil don't you use it!"

But Fanny had got herself in hand again. "It isn't a gift," she said,
lightly. "It's just a little knack that amuses me. There's no money in
it. Besides, it's too late now. One's got to do a thing superlatively,
nowadays, to be recognized. I don't draw superlatively, but I do handle
infants' wear better than any woman I know. In two more years I'll be
getting ten thousand a year at Haynes-Cooper. In five years----"

"Then what?"

Fanny's hands became fists, gripping the power she craved. "Then I shall
have arrived. I shall be able to see the great and beautiful things of
this world, and mingle with the people who possess them."

"When you might be making them yourself, you little fool. Don't glare at
me like that. I tell you that those pictures are the real expression
of you. That's why you turn to them as relief from the shop grind. You
can't help doing them. They're you."

"I can stop if I want to. They amuse me, that's all."

"You can't stop. It's in your blood. It's the Jew in you."

"The----Here, I'll show you. I won't do another sketch for a year. I'll
prove to you that my ancestors' religion doesn't influe