caught hers for a moment.
"Not everybody can, but you can. Only, if you want a big thing, you've
got to have nerve enough to cut out all that's easy, everything that's
to be had cheap." Dr. Archie paused. He picked up a paper-cutter and,
feeling the edge of it softly with his fingers, he added slowly, as if
to himself:--

"He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares
not put it to the touch To win...or lose it all."

Thea's lips parted; she looked at him from under a frown, searching his
face. "Do you mean to break loose, too, and--do something?" she asked
in a low voice.

"I mean to get rich, if you call that doing anything. I've found what I
can do without. You make such bargains in your mind, first."

Thea sprang up and took the paper-cutter he had put down, twisting it in
her hands. "A long while first, sometimes," she said with a short laugh.
"But suppose one can never get out what they've got in them? Suppose
they make a mess of it in the end; then what?" She threw the
paper-cutter on the desk and took a step toward the doctor, until her
dress touched him. She stood looking down at him. "Oh, it's easy to
fail!" She was breathing through her mouth and her throat was throbbing
with excitement.

As he looked up at her, Dr. Archie's hands tightened on the arms of his
chair. He had thought he knew Thea Kronborg pretty well, but he did not
know the girl who was standing there. She was beautiful, as his little
Swede had never been, but she frightened him. Her pale cheeks, her
parted lips, her flashing eyes, seemed suddenly to mean one thing--he
did not know what. A light seemed to break upon her from far away--or
perhaps from far within. She seemed to grow taller, like a scarf drawn
out long; looked as if she were pursued and fleeing, and--yes, she
looked tormented. "It's easy to fail," he heard her say again, "and if I
fail, you'd better forget about me, for I'll be one of the worst women
that ever lived. I'll be an awful woman!"

In the shadowy light above the lampshade he caught her glance again and
held it for a moment. Wild as her eyes were, that yellow gleam at the
back of them was as hard as a diamond drill-point. He rose with a
nervous laugh and dropped his hand lightly on her shoulder. "No, you
won't. You'll be a splendid one!"

She shook him off before he could say anything more, and went out of his
door with a kind of bound. She left so quickly and so lightly that he
cou