and brooch.

Cowperwood glowed with a strange feeling of approval and enthusiasm at
this manifestation of real interest. He liked jade himself very much,
but more than that the feeling that prompted this expression in
another. Roughly speaking, it might have been said of him that youth
and hope in women--particularly youth when combined with beauty and
ambition in a girl--touched him. He responded keenly to her impulse to
do or be something in this world, whatever it might be, and he looked
on the smart, egoistic vanity of so many with a kindly, tolerant,
almost parental eye. Poor little organisms growing on the tree of
life--they would burn out and fade soon enough. He did not know the
ballad of the roses of yesteryear, but if he had it would have appealed
to him. He did not care to rifle them, willy-nilly; but should their
temperaments or tastes incline them in his direction, they would not
suffer vastly in their lives because of him. The fact was, the man was
essentially generous where women were concerned.

"How nice of you!" he commented, smiling. "I like that." And then,
seeing a note-book and pencil beside her, he asked, "What are you
doing?"

"Just sketching."

"Let me see?"

"It's nothing much," she replied, deprecatingly. "I don't draw very
well."

"Gifted girl!" he replied, picking it up. "Paints, draws, carves on
wood, plays, sings, acts."

"All rather badly," she sighed, turning her head languidly and looking
away. In her sketch-book she had put all of her best drawings; there
were sketches of nude women, dancers, torsos, bits of running figures,
sad, heavy, sensuous heads and necks of sleeping girls, chins up,
eyelids down, studies of her brothers and sister, and of her father and
mother.

"Delightful!" exclaimed Cowperwood, keenly alive to a new treasure.
Good heavens, where had been his eyes all this while? Here was a jewel
lying at his doorstep--innocent, untarnished--a real jewel. These
drawings suggested a fire of perception, smoldering and somber, which
thrilled him.

"These are beautiful to me, Stephanie," he said, simply, a strange,
uncertain feeling of real affection creeping over him. The man's
greatest love was for art. It was hypnotic to him. "Did you ever
study art?" he asked.

"No."

"And you never studied acting?"

"No."

She shook her head in a slow, sad, enticing way. The black hair
concealing her ears moved him strangely.

"I know the art of your stage