ore
candid than her costume, and the best proof of it was her supposing her
liberal character suited by any uniform. This was a fallacy, since if
she was draped as a pessimist he was sure she liked the taste of life. He
thanked her for her appreciation--aware at the same time that he didn't
appear to thank her enough and that she might think him ungracious. He
was afraid she would ask him to explain something he had written, and he
always winced at that--perhaps too timidly--for to his own ear the
explanation of a work of art sounded fatuous. But he liked her so much
as to feel a confidence that in the long run he should be able to show
her he wasn't rudely evasive. Moreover she surely wasn't quick to take
offence, wasn't irritable; she could be trusted to wait. So when he said
to her, "Ah don't talk of anything I've done, don't talk of it _here_;
there's another man in the house who's the actuality!"--when he uttered
this short sincere protest it was with the sense that she would see in
the words neither mock humility nor the impatience of a successful man
bored with praise.

"You mean Mr. St. George--isn't he delightful?"

Paul Overt met her eyes, which had a cool morning-light that would have
half-broken his heart if he hadn't been so young. "Alas I don't know
him. I only admire him at a distance."

"Oh you must know him--he wants so to talk to you," returned Miss
Fancourt, who evidently had the habit of saying the things that, by her
quick calculation, would give people pleasure. Paul saw how she would
always calculate on everything's being simple between others.

"I shouldn't have supposed he knew anything about me," he professed.

"He does then--everything. And if he didn't I should be able to tell
him."

"To tell him everything?" our friend smiled.

"You talk just like the people in your book!" she answered.

"Then they must all talk alike."

She thought a moment, not a bit disconcerted. "Well, it must be so
difficult. Mr. St. George tells me it _is_--terribly. I've tried
too--and I find it so. I've tried to write a novel."

"Mr. St. George oughtn't to discourage you," Paul went so far as to say.

"You do much more--when you wear that expression."

"Well, after all, why try to be an artist?" the young man pursued. "It's
so poor--so poor!"

"I don't know what you mean," said Miss Fancourt, who looked grave.

"I mean as compared with being a person of action--as living your works."