"I didn't--I think I never was _quite_ so certain before, Alden--but now I'm driven all one way." "I believe that." He rose and spoke in a livelier manner. "But if you won't be wise for me, Nell, be wise for some one else. For God's sake feel a little worry about your health. I say you look unpromising at this moment." "I've always been well," she insisted brightly. "And, Nell, I've wanted to be so much more than a friend to you that my feelings are a bit blurred just now--but I believe I'll always do what a friend should." CHAPTER XIX THE UNBLAZED WAY Ewing was loath to sleep that night, for in sleep he must leave the thought of her who, having been only a picture to him, had come suddenly to life. The magic would have seemed no greater if his own mother had issued livingly from the canvas. How it had happened he knew not, but this woman was all at once the living spring of his life. The thought of her was a golden mist enveloping him. He did not once call it love, but he thought of the gracious women he had loved in books, and knew she was all of them in one. And once he had been almost careless in her presence! How he marveled at that now, when he knew that henceforth every approach to her would be an event. He shuddered at the memory of what he had been saved from--that swift brute impulse to hold her close against his breast. Must he feel that always--fight it always, to be blasted if he lost? At least in his own secret world he was free to treasure each memory of her dearness. And he could make her glad. He could work as man had not worked before. He could make her a little glad. He feverishly began a drawing for the _Knickerbocker_ the next morning. Craig, the art editor, had said that he could use six drawings as good as the two he was shown, and they had decided on scenes that would give variety to the series. But that was before a Teevan had come into his life, and now he had lost a month in the dream of satisfying that patron critic. It was good to prove that he could still draw in his own way; he had suffered so long in that rage of impotence; and he kept to the work until dusk, making no stop for food, even when the noise of falling bodies came to mark the luncheon hour. When Teevan sauntered in at six the two went to dine at a restaurant. Ewing had no longer dreaded the meeting. He was ready to show Teevan that there had been no true failure. But Teevan merely listened to the bare outline of fact as they threaded a way through the evening crowd. He made no comment, and Ewing thought this might be due to the difficulty of conversing in a noisy street. But after ordering dinner with a nice deliberation, Teevan spoke determinedly of other matters. Ewing ventured a humorous reference to his despair when he left the school, meaning to compel the inference that he no longer despaired. Teevan languidly mentioned a violinist he had heard the evening before.