worries me.'

'Understand once for all, then, that I can manage my own affairs, and if
I choose to do anything you aren't to blame. You haven't a single thing
to reproach yourself with, darling.'

'Yes, I have, and talking only makes it worse.'

'Then don't talk about it.'

'How can I help myself? If you find me alone for a minute you are always
talking about it; and when you aren't you look it. You don't know how I
despise myself sometimes.'

'Great goodness!' said Dick, nearly jumping to his feet. 'Speak the
truth now, Maisie, if you never speak it again! Do I--does this worrying
bore you?'

'No. It does not.'

'You'd tell me if it did?'

'I should let you know, I think.'

'Thank you. The other thing is fatal. But you must learn to forgive
a man when he's in love. He's always a nuisance. You must have known
that?'

Maisie did not consider the last question worth answering, and Dick was
forced to repeat it.

'There were other men, of course. They always worried just when I was in
the middle of my work, and wanted me to listen to them.'

'Did you listen?'

'At first; and they couldn't understand why I didn't care. And they used
to praise my pictures; and I thought they meant it. I used to be proud
of the praise, and tell Kami, and--I shall never forget--once Kami
laughed at me.'

'You don't like being laughed at, Maisie, do you?'

'I hate it. I never laugh at other people unless--unless they do bad
work.

Dick, tell me honestly what you think of my pictures generally,--of
everything of mine that you've seen.'

'"Honest, honest, and honest over!"' quoted Dick from a catchword of
long ago. 'Tell me what Kami always says.'

Maisie hesitated. 'He--he says that there is feeling in them.'

'How dare you tell me a fib like that? Remember, I was under Kami for
two years. I know exactly what he says.'

'It isn't a fib.'

'It's worse; it's a half-truth. Kami says, when he puts his head on one
side,--so,--"Il y a du sentiment, mais il n'y a pas de parti pris."' He
rolled the r threateningly, as Kami used to do.

'Yes, that is what he says; and I'm beginning to think that he is
right.'

'Certainly he is.' Dick admitted that two people in the world could do
and say no wrong. Kami was the man.

'And now you say the same thing. It's so disheartening.'

'I'm sorry, but you asked me to speak the truth. Besides, I love you
too much to pretend about your work. It's strong, it's patient
sometimes,--not a