ight before
him--he turned over many things. His friend had wandered away, taking up
a parcel of letters from the table where the roll of proofs had lain.
"What was the book Mrs. St. George made you burn--the one she didn't
like?" our young man brought out.

"The book she made me burn--how did you know that?" The Master looked up
from his letters quite without the facial convulsion the pupil had
feared.

"I heard her speak of it at Summersoft."

"Ah yes--she's proud of it. I don't know--it was rather good."

"What was it about?"

"Let me see." And he seemed to make an effort to remember. "Oh yes--it
was about myself." Paul gave an irrepressible groan for the
disappearance of such a production, and the elder man went on: "Oh but
_you_ should write it--_you_ should do me." And he pulled up--from the
restless motion that had come upon him; his fine smile a generous glare.
"There's a subject, my boy: no end of stuff in it!"

Again Paul was silent, but it was all tormenting. "Are there no women
who really understand--who can take part in a sacrifice?"

"How can they take part? They themselves are the sacrifice. They're the
idol and the altar and the flame."

"Isn't there even _one_ who sees further?" Paul continued.

For a moment St. George made no answer; after which, having torn up his
letters, he came back to the point all ironic. "Of course I know the one
you mean. But not even Miss Fancourt."

"I thought you admired her so much."

"It's impossible to admire her more. Are you in love with her?" St.
George asked.

"Yes," Paul Overt presently said.

"Well then give it up."

Paul stared. "Give up my 'love'?"

"Bless me, no. Your idea." And then as our hero but still gazed: "The
one you talked with her about. The idea of a decent perfection."

"She'd help it--she'd help it!" the young man cried.

"For about a year--the first year, yes. After that she'd be as a
millstone round its neck."

Paul frankly wondered. "Why she has a passion for the real thing, for
good work--for everything you and I care for most."

"'You and I' is charming, my dear fellow!" his friend laughed. "She has
it indeed, but she'd have a still greater passion for her children--and
very proper too. She'd insist on everything's being made comfortable,
advantageous, propitious for them. That isn't the artist's business."

"The artist--the artist! Isn't he a man all the same?"

St. George had a grand grimace.