"Theridium triste," said Frederick and suddenly recalled the simile of the spider that Doctor Wilhelm had used in reference to Ingigerd. Miss Burns, of course, did not understand him; but Frederick broke off, and though she questioned him, refused to explain. She promptly withdrew her question, saying she thought it was quite right and good for him if the conversation lost its German philosophic cast and descended to the level of a superficial person like herself. "I advise you," she added, "no matter how sharply you may criticise yourself for having travelled so many roads without reaching the end, to strike out into a new road, and do so quite cheerfully. Confine yourself to something that makes an equal demand on your hands, your eyes and your brain. In short, return to your old love and try your hand again on sculpture. Perhaps in a few months you will be the creator of a world-famous Madonna in polychrome wood." "You are mistaken in me," Frederick rejoined. "I do nothing but blow soap bubbles. Leave me to my illusion, that there is a great artist in me awaiting the moment of self-expression and development. What I am really much more fitted for is to be Mr. Ritter's coachman, or valet, or at best his business manager." XIV Miss Burns took out her little purse, refusing to let Frederick pay for her, and they stepped out again into the busy streets. "By Jove," said Frederick, whose manner when in the hurly-burly changed completely, "what a lot of stuff I have been chattering! I deserve to be punished for trying your patience to such an extent. I must have bored you horribly." "Oh, no," she said, "I am accustomed to such conversations. I have associated with artists for many years." "Do you mean to impugn my truthfulness, Miss Burns?" Frederick asked in some alarm. "No, but I think," she said calmly, with almost masculine firmness, "that if nature makes us suffer through something, she does not intend us to suffer again and again from the same thing. It seems to me the Creator had a definite intention in always and everywhere placing night and sleep between day and day." "Not always and not everywhere," Frederick observed, thinking of the difficulty he had had for many nights in snatching a few hours' sleep. At a street crossing Miss Burns stopped to wait for a car to take her back to the studio. "Look at that," said Frederick, pointing to six similar placards of gigantic dimensions, which represented Mara, the Spider's Victim, in screaming colours. A green stripe was pasted slantwise on each placard, announcing that the dancer had been suffering from the consequences of the shipwreck, but that she would appear at Webster and Forster's the next day for the first time in America. Above the advertisement on the same wall were seven or eight full-length pictures of Arthur Stoss larger than life-size.