half-way out of the
living-room when David Verne resumed:

"No, you must really go about more, or you will begin to hate me."

The young Arab paused beyond the living-room door, his handsome head
inclined to one side, waiting for the response--not for the words, but
for the mere tone of her voice. He heard:

"While you are holding your own, and working so well, I am happy."

Hamoud closed his eyes, in order to let those silvery vibrations occupy
his whole consciousness. Then, staring before him, he went swiftly
across the wainscotted hall with his lithe, noiseless step, escaping
before that other voice could break the spell.

David Verne, in his wheel chair that stood beside a tall lamp, gave her
a furtive look, before continuing:

"Is it always happiness that I discover on your face? Is that what you
show me when you raise your eyes blankly from some book, or return from
the garden after those lonely walks of yours in the twilight? Or is it
pity, not only for me, but also for yourself? Is it then that you see
clearly what you've let yourself in for--what that divine impulse of
yours has brought you to?"

"David!" she protested, her nerves contracting at this threat of a
scene that must lacerate both their hearts.

But he persisted:

"I don't disbelieve what you told me about Rysbroek. It's not he that
I'm jealous of. I can even believe that there's no other living man in
your thoughts. The powers that I can never hope to conquer don't have
to exist in the present, in order to frighten me. They have only to
exist in the past and in the future. Of course the man who is dead
will always triumph over me by comparison. And some day, since mortals
are bound to strive for a duplication of their happiest moments,
another will appear to promise you that duplication."

How young he seemed in the light of the tall lamp, despite all his
former physical sufferings and his present anxieties! Again there was
a look of childish pain on his lips, and in his large eyes humid
beneath the brow that harbored thoughts of a magnificent precocity.
Again compassion filled her at sight of this weakness, this
helplessness. She returned:

"How can you say such things? When I refuse to go anywhere, because
you couldn't go with me without being bored----"

"You mean, without feeling my inferiority."

"Is it inferiority to be the great artist that you are? What
wickedness! You, with your genius, aren't satisfied, but