ew, and he was always a month behind in his office and apartment
rent, he did not lose faith in himself; he gave his very best to the
little business he had and worked away at his sketches, which grew
better all the time. (It hurt him more than a little that Shirley took
no interest in them.) And though he saw clearly that she had faults,
even as you and I, he did not lose faith in Shirley nor cease to love
her. Often at nights, especially after there had been a quarrel, he
stole away from his sketching to the room where she slept with the baby
by her side and lightly kissed her hair or an outflung arm. Then the
old tender protective impulse swept over him; he wished he were the
sort of man that could give her all the things she wanted, thinking
that the way to prove a love.

Then a "chance" came. Or, rather, he tried to make one. A rich parish
decided that it could best honor God by building a new church, finer
and costlier than anything else in the city, and invited several
architects to submit plans. David entered the competition, not by the
adroit methods Dick Holden practised, but in the simple open-handed
fashion which alone was possible to him. He went to the chairman of
the building committee.

"Will you let me submit plans?" he asked.

"I suppose so," Bixby said carelessly, eying his caller dubiously.

For David, though he had carefully pressed his trousers for the
occasion, was getting to be a little shabby. If you looked close you
saw that his cuffs were trimmed, his necktie was threadbare and his
shoes were run down at the heels. And he had not the look that speaks
of success. Seeing him, Bixby did not think as people had used to
think, "This is a young man who will do big things some day."

"When must the plans be filed?"

The chairman told him, and added, "You understand, of course, they have
to be bang-up--up-to-date in every particular, and _impressive_?"

"Some things," David said gravely, "are so beautiful that they are
up-to-date in every age. And real beauty is always impressive because
it is so rare."

"Humph!" said Bixby, and dismissed his caller.

David set to work that very night, going over all his old sketches in
search of the best. And because none of them had ever quite satisfied
him, he discarded them all. He began a new series of sketches, sitting
up at nights long after he should have been asleep. He discarded
these, too. For this idea must be so very good that th