ghtened. "But she can't fail," he cried with
over-energy. "There's no question about her voice."

"I understand," Mrs. Brindley hastened to say. "I was simply making
conversation with her as the subject."

"Oh, I see." Stanley settled back.

"Suppose she should prove not to be a great artist--what then?"
persisted Cyrilla, who was deeply interested in the intricate obscure
problem of what people really thought as distinguished from what they
professed and also from what they imagined they thought.

"The fact that she's a great artist--that's part of her," said Baird.
"If she weren't a great singer, she wouldn't be she--don't you see?"

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with an ironic sadness which she
indulged openly because there was no danger of his understanding.

"I don't exactly love her because she amounts to a lot--or is sure to,"
pursued he, vaguely dissatisfied with himself. "It's just as she
doesn't care for me because I've got the means to take care of her
right, yet that's part of me--and she'd not be able to marry me if I
hadn't. Don't you see?"

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with more irony and less sadness.
"There's always SOME reason beside love."

"I'd say there's always some reason FOR love," said Baird, and he felt
that he had said something brilliant--as is the habit of people of
sluggish mentality when they say a thing they do not themselves
understand. "You don't doubt that I love her?" he went on. "Why should
I ask her to marry me if I didn't?"

"I suppose that settles it," said Cyrilla.

"Of course it does," declared he.

For an hour he sat there, talking on, most of it a pretty dull kind of
drivel. Mrs. Brindley listened patiently, because she liked him and
because she had nothing else to do until bedtime. At last he rose with
a long sigh and said:

"I guess I might as well be going."

"She'll not come in to-night again," said Cyrilla slyly.

He laughed. "You are a good one. I'll own up, I've been staying on
partly in the hope that she'd come back. But it's been a great joy to
talk to you about her. I know you love her, too."

"Yes, I'm extremely fond of her," said she. "I've not known many
women--many people without petty mean tricks. She's one."

"Isn't she, though?" exclaimed he.

"I don't mean she's perfect," said Mrs. Brindley. "I don't even mean
that she's as angelic as you think her. I'd not like her, if she were.
But she's a superior kind of human."