hen let me tell you that you're a little fool to have anything to do
with a man like that. You can't touch pitch, you know, and--"

"I only touch him with a pair of compasses," she interrupted sweetly.

"Don't quibble," said Allen with energy; "it's not like you. That man is
so bad, so unsavory, so vile, that you simply _mustn't_ have him about.
He's dangerous."

"So is a volcano," said Barbara, "but there's no reason why the most
innocent bread-and-butter miss shouldn't paint a picture of a volcano if
she felt inspired."

"I see that there's only one thing to do. I shall tell your father."

Wilmot Allen was genuinely troubled. And Barbara laughed at him.

"I'm not a child," she said.

"That's just it," said he; "that's why you ought to be ashamed of
yourself. And anyway you are a child. All girls say they aren't until
they get into a mess of some sort, and then they excuse themselves to
themselves and everybody else by protesting that they were. 'I was so
young. I didn't know,' and all that rot."

"Blizzard," said Barbara, "is quiet, polite, and a good talker. He
comes, he sits for me, and he goes away."

The butler having left the room, Wilmot fixed his rather tired eyes on
Barbara's face, and spoke with a certain earnest tenderness. "Barbs," he
said, "take it from me, happiness doesn't lie where you think it does. I
think the very highest achievements of the very greatest artists haven't
brought happiness. Look here, old dear; put a limit to your ambition.
Say that by a certain date you'll either succeed and quit, or fail and
quit, and then see if you can't take a little more interest in your own
people, in your own heart--even in me."

"Wilmot," she said seriously, "if I fail with my head of Blizzard, I
think I _shall_ give up."

"Wouldn't it be better," he pleaded, "to give up now? And then, you
know, you could always say if _only_ you'd kept on you would have made a
masterpiece."

"And who would believe that?"

"_I!_" said Wilmot. "It's easy for me to believe anything wonderful of
you. It always has been."

"And a moment ago," she smiled, "you called me a little fool and said
you'd tell my father on me."

She rose, still smiling, and he followed her into the library.

"Are all the studios in your building occupied?" he asked.

"They are," said Barbara, "and they aren't. Kelting, who has the ground
floor, has gone abroad. And Updyke, who has the third floor, has been in
Bermuda all winter." She