"What do you know about Beth?" he said quickly. "Have you ever met
her?"

She smiled. "I can honestly say I never have," she answered. But she
looked away from him into the fire as she spoke, and he recognised the
set of her head on her shoulders as she turned it; he had noted it
often.

"God!" he exclaimed, "what a blind idiot I have been--Beth! Beth!" He
threw himself down on his knees beside her chair, caught her hand, and
covered it with kisses.

Beth snatched her hand away, and he returned embarrassed to his seat
and sat gazing at her for a little, then took out his handkerchief and
suddenly burst into tears.

"What a mess I have made of my life!" he exclaimed. "Everything that
would have been best for me has been within reach at some time or
other, but I invariably took the wrong thing and let the right one go.
But, Beth, I was only a boy then, and I suffered when they separated
us."

This reflection seemed to ease his mind on the subject. That she might
also have suffered did not occur to him; as usual his whole concern
was for himself.

"Yes, you are right, Beth," he proceeded. "I _have_ deteriorated; but
'we always may be what we might have been'--and you have been sent to
me again as a sign that it is not too late for me. You were my first
love, my earliest ideal, and I have not changed, you see, I have been
true to you; for, although I never suspected you were Beth, I
recognised my rightful mate in you the moment we met. Yes, I was on
the right road when we were boy and girl together, but the promise of
that time has not been fulfilled. All the poetry in me has lain
dormant since the days when you drew it forth. I gave up modelling
when I went to the 'Varsity because they didn't care for that kind of
thing in my set, you know. They were all men of position, who wouldn't
associate with artists unless they were at the top of the tree; clever
fellows, and good themselves at squibs and epigrams. If you'd ever
been to the 'Varsity you'd know that a man must adapt himself to his
environment if he means to get on. My dream had been to make my
visions of beauty visible, as you used to suggest; but I had to give
that up, there was nothing else for it. Still, I was not content to do
nothing, to be nobody; therefore, when I abandoned the clay, I took to
the pen; I gave up the marble for the manuscript. Many men of position
have written, you know, and so long as you didn't mug, fellows didn't
mind. In fact, they