rself!"

"I make no pretence of having suffered," she answered. "I have no
patience with people who do. We have our destiny in our own hands to
make or mar, most of us. If we fail in one thing we shall succeed in
another. Life is a fertile garden, full of plants that bud and blossom
and bear fruit not once but every season while it lasts. If the crop
of happiness fails one year, we should set to work bravely, and
cultivate it all the more diligently for the next."

"All this is beside the mark," he responded peevishly. "You are
offering me the generalisations that only apply to ordinary people.
Allowance _must_ be made for exceptional natures. Look at me! I tell
you if I had met the right woman, I should have been at the top of the
tree by this time. I have the greatest respect for woman. I believe
that her part in life is to fertilise the mind of man; and if the able
man does not find the right woman for this purpose, he must remain
sterile, and the world will be the loser. I never knew such a woman
till I met you; but in you I have discovered one rich in all womanly
attributes, mental, moral, and physical; and, beyond these, dowered
also with genius, the divine gift--the very woman to help a man to do
his best."

"And what is the man going to do for me?" Beth inquired with a twinkle
in her eyes.

"He would surround you with every comfort, every luxury--jewels----"

"Like a ballet-girl!" she interjected. "I am really afraid you are
old-fashioned. You begin by offering me gewgaws--the paltry price
women set on themselves in the days of their intellectual infancy. We
know our value better now."

"You should have all that an ideal woman ought to have," he put in.
"What more can a woman require?"

"She would like to know what all she ought to have consists of," Beth
replied. "As a rule, a man's ideal woman is some one who will make him
comfortable; and he thinks he has done all that is necessary for her
when he allows her to contribute to his happiness."

"Ah, be serious!" he ejaculated. "You should be above playing in that
cruel way with a man who is in earnest. Hear what I have to say.
Remember _we_ are the people who make history. You talk about knowing
your own value! You do not know it. Without me you never will know it.
You do not know what is being said already about your unpublished
work. Those who have read it tell me you promise to be to England what
Georges Sand was to France when she appeared, a new l