"I don't suppose it satisfies your ambition--I should be sorry if it
did."

"My _ambition_? What do you think it was?"

"It was, wasn't it--To be a great critic?"

"It depends on what you call great."

"Well, you came very near it once."

"When?"

"When you were editor of _The Museion_."

He smiled sadly. "The editor of _The Museion_, Lucia, was a very
little man with a very big conceit of himself. I admit he made himself
pretty conspicuous. So does every leader of a forlorn hope."

"Still he led it. What does the editor of _Metropolis_ lead?"

"Public opinion, dear. He has--although you mightn't think
it--considerable power."

Lucia was silent.

"He can make--or kill--a reputation in twenty-four hours."

"Does that satisfy your ambition?"

"Yes. It satisfies my ambition. But it doesn't satisfy me."

"I was afraid it didn't."

"You needn't be afraid, dear; for you know perfectly well what would."

"Do I know? Do you know yourself, Horace?"

"Yes, Lucia," he said gently; "after ten years. You may not be proud
of your cousin--"

"I used to be proud of him always--or nearly always."

"When were you proud of him?"

"When he was himself; when he was sincere."

"I ought to be very proud of _my_ cousin; for she is pitilessly
sincere."

"Horace--"

"It is so, dear. Never mind, you needn't be proud of me, if you'll
only care--"

"I have always cared."

"Or is it--nearly always?"

"Well--nearly always."

"You're right. I _am_ insincere, I was insincere when I said you
needn't be proud of me. I want you, I mean you to be."

"Do you mean to give up _Metropolis_, then?"

"Well, no. That's asking rather too much."

"I know it is."

"Do you hate it so much, Lucia? I wish you didn't."

"I have hated it so much, Horace, that I once wished I had been a rich
woman, that you might be"--she was going to say "an honourable man."

"What's wrong with it? It's a better paper than the old one. There are
better men on it, and its editor's a better man."

"Is he?"

"Yes. He's a simpler, humbler person, and--I should have thought--more
possible to like."

In her heart Lucia admitted that it was so. There was a charm about
this later Horace Jewdwine which was wanting in that high spirit that
had essayed to move the earth. He had come down from his chilly
altitudes to mix with men; he had shed the superstition of
omnipotence, he was aware of his own weakness and humanized by it. The
man was soiled