of
nonsense. She is exceedingly delicate, and no wonder, sitting up all
night sketching and sitting in all day painting! I wish you could have
chosen some strong, sensible, matter-of-fact young woman!"

I smiled as I listened. The combination of those three adjectives
fairly set my teeth on edge, and suddenly I seemed to see Lucia's pale
brilliant face, with its dilated eyes and genius-lit pupils, swimming
in the shaft of sunlight that fell between us on the rug.

"What the children of two such maniacs will be, I tremble to think of!"
he said after a minute.

I laughed outright, flung my cigar end into the fire, and stretched
myself.

"I don't think you need trouble about the children!" I said
significantly.

His remark sounded so ludicrous to me that my answer came
spontaneously, but it was the worst thing I could have said. My
father's old-fashioned ideas were the rock upon which we invariably
split. Otherwise we should have got on very well. But he was entirely
of the school of yesterday, and I was entirely of the school of
to-morrow. His forehead contracted violently, and he said curtly--

"Now, don't let me hear any of that ridiculous nonsense you were
talking the other day! I won't have these sentiments expressed in my
hearing!"

I laughed, and said nothing. I never wish to express sentiments in
anybody's hearing that they don't want.

"Of course," he said, finally, after a long pause, "you can please
yourself. If you like to try and find a situation as clerk or secretary
or shoe-black, and marry this girl on the proceeds, do so. But if you
do, you will get no help from me in future. Don't come to me then for
funds to bring out your MSS. If you choose to disgrace your family and
disappoint my expectations, consider yourself entirely cut off from me,
that's all."

There was another stretch of silence, and then--

"Well, which is it to be, Victor? Lucia or Genius?"

"I really hardly know," I answered, lightly. "I want them both. I'll
think it over."

And with Nous, who had sprung to his feet as I moved, closely following
me, I crossed the dining-room and went out, upstairs to my own writing
and sitting-room. Here I flung myself into an arm-chair and let my hand
hang over the side and rest on the collie's neck. And as I curled
absently the locks of fur round my fingers, the thought came--When
would my hand play as familiarly with those short, glistening curls on
Lucia's forehead? Of course, as far as