“No, Madonna, I cannot. The blossom of life is gone--only the bare stalk is left. It may flower again, but it must be watered and fed. My affair with poetry has ended like so many marriages--in disillusion. That is rough, when one realizes that poetry demands the hardest labour for the smallest return of any occupation on earth. It takes all one’s youth, at the expense of practical things--and one is left with a handful of frail results that are hardly more substantial than memories. But the greater the early love, the more complete must be the separation, and one must recognize it when it comes. One must renounce; in that lies the only hope of renewal. People are mistaken about life being a steady progress from youth to age, anyway. It’s a constant shuttling from age to youth and back again. We all grow senile about every seven years, and then young again. I am in a senile period. Why should I do poetry the dishonour of pursuing her in such a state? Bah, it is better to do anything else. You mustn’t be impatient with me. I do not flower very often--but neither does the century plant. And it is counted among the world’s wonders.” “Well,” she said consolingly, “perhaps you are right. Better a little that is good than a lot that is indifferent. All I know is that there are reputations built on no more talent than yours.” “If I could believe that,” he said thoughtfully, “I should not surrender. But I can’t believe it. I shall have to squeeze business for a time, as one squeezes an orange--for the golden juice. I shall hoard it, as if every ounce meant a golden hour. Then we shall see. My God! Madonna,” he burst forth. “Fifty dollars a week--there in my hand, _every week_. Think of it. All my life fifty dollars has seemed like the other side of the moon.” The next day he began the work of which he had talked so much. She had known him a month. Now for some time, she was to see little of him. He left early and returned late, and with the long summer evenings at hand, she began to paint. It was very hard to drive herself to work. Her hands were stiff; her senses were clumsy, and her first efforts resulted in little more than a waste of valuable materials. She needed everything--models, encouragement, criticism. These even Elsie or Miles could have furnished after a fashion, but she dared not ask them--she was not ready for that. She contented herself with trials at still life, with experiments, with attempts at self-portraiture. Then slowly the love of simply applying the brush, the fever of trying and trying again for the effects she wanted, the joy of feeling momentary hints of power, and of succeeding now and then with some little thing, quickened her interest, until the time came when she found herself standing up to her canvas until it had grown almost dark.