"I never composed anything except two or three little things that I
never dared to play, even for encores."

"Never say you can't. Say 'I must,' and 'I will.'"

"You're saying them for me. You almost make me believe in myself."

"That's the very best of beginnings, isn't it?"

She was quite calm now, outwardly, and she drew her hand away. Allison
remembered the long, happy hours they had spent together before Isabel
came into his life. Now that she was gone, the old comradeship had
returned, the sweeter because of long absence. Rose had never fretted
nor annoyed him; she seemed always to understand.

"You don't know how glad I'd be," he sighed, "to feel that I wasn't
quite out of it--that there was something in life for me still. I didn't
want to be a bit of driftwood on the current of things."

"You're not going to be--I won't let you. Haven't you learned that
sometimes we have to wait; that we can't always be going on? Just moor
your soul at the landing place, and when the hour comes, you'll swing
out into the current again. Much of the driftwood is only craft that
broke away from the landing."

He smiled, for her fancy pleased him. An abiding sense of companionship
crept into his loneliness; his isolation seemed to be shared. "And
you'll stay at the landing with me," he whispered, "until the time comes
to set sail again?"