iterature's touching--something quite peculiar to herself; she takes it
all so seriously. She feels the arts and she wants to feel them more. To
those who practise them it's almost humiliating--her curiosity, her
sympathy, her good faith. How can anything be as fine as she supposes
it?"

"She's a rare organisation," the younger man sighed.

"The richest I've ever seen--an artistic intelligence really of the first
order. And lodged in such a form!" St. George exclaimed.

"One would like to represent such a girl as that," Paul continued.

"Ah there it is--there's nothing like life!" said his companion. "When
you're finished, squeezed dry and used up and you think the sack's empty,
you're still appealed to, you still get touches and thrills, the idea
springs up--out of the lap of the actual--and shows you there's always
something to be done. But I shan't do it--she's not for me!"

"How do you mean, not for you?"

"Oh it's all over--she's for you, if you like."

"Ah much less!" said Paul. "She's not for a dingy little man of letters;
she's for the world, the bright rich world of bribes and rewards. And
the world will take hold of her--it will carry her away."

"It will try--but it's just a case in which there may be a fight. It
would be worth fighting, for a man who had it in him, with youth and
talent on his side."

These words rang not a little in Paul Overt's consciousness--they held
him briefly silent. "It's a wonder she has remained as she is; giving
herself away so--with so much to give away."

"Remaining, you mean, so ingenuous--so natural? Oh she doesn't care a
straw--she gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings,
her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be proud.
And then she hasn't been here long enough to be spoiled; she has picked
up a fashion or two, but only the amusing ones. She's a provincial--a
provincial of genius," St. George went on; "her very blunders are
charming, her mistakes are interesting. She has come back from Asia with
all sorts of excited curiosities and unappeased appetities. She's first-
rate herself and she expends herself on the second-rate. She's life
herself and she takes a rare interest in imitations. She mixes all
things up, but there are none in regard to which she hasn't perceptions.
She sees things in a perspective--as if from the top of the Himalayas--and
she enlarges everything she touches. Above all she exaggerates-