yourself. And anyway you are a child. All girls say they aren't until
they get into a mess of some sort, and then they excuse themselves to
themselves and everybody else by protesting that they were. 'I was so
young. I didn't know,' and all that rot."

"Blizzard," said Barbara, "is quiet, polite, and a good talker. He
comes, he sits for me, and he goes away."

The butler having left the room, Wilmot fixed his rather tired eyes on
Barbara's face, and spoke with a certain earnest tenderness. "Barbs," he
said, "take it from me, happiness doesn't lie where you think it does. I
think the very highest achievements of the very greatest artists haven't
brought happiness. Look here, old dear; put a limit to your ambition.
Say that by a certain date you'll either succeed and quit, or fail and
quit, and then see if you can't take a little more interest in your own
people, in your own heart--even in me."

"Wilmot," she said seriously, "if I fail with my head of Blizzard, I
think I _shall_ give up."

"Wouldn't it be better," he pleaded, "to give up now? And then, you
know, you could always say if _only_ you'd kept on you would have made a
masterpiece."

"And who would believe that?"

"_I!_" said Wilmot. "It's easy for me to believe anything wonderful of
you. It always has been."

"And a moment ago," she smiled, "you called me a little fool and said