"I HAVE read about them," she said--"Walter Scott was popular and made money,--Charles Dickens was popular and made money--Thackeray was popular and made money--Shakespeare himself seemed to have had the one principal aim of making sufficient money enough to live comfortably in his native town, and he was 'popular' in his day--indeed he 'played to the gallery.' But he was not a 'failure'--and the whole world acknowledges his greatness now, though in his life-time he was unconscious of it." Surprised at her quick eloquence, he paused in his work. "Very well spoken!" he remarked, condescendingly--"I see you take a high view of your art! But like all women, you wander from the point. We were talking of Lord Blythe--and I say it would be far better for you to be--well!--his heiress!--for he might leave you all his fortune--than go on writing books." Her lips quivered: despite her efforts, tears started to her eyes. He saw, and throwing down his brush came and knelt beside her, passing his arm round her waist. "What have I said?" he murmured, coaxingly--"Innocent--sweet little love! Forgive me if I have--what?"--and he laughed softly--"rubbed you up the wrong way!" She forced a smile, and her delicate white hands wandered caressingly through his hair as he laid his head against her bosom. "I am sorry!" she said, at last--"I thought--I hoped--you might be proud of my work, Amadis! I was planning it all for that! You see"--she hesitated--"I learned so much from the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin--the brother of your ancestor!--that I have been thinking all the time how I could best show you that I was worthy of his teaching. The world--or the public--you know the things they say of me--but I do not want their praise. I believe I could do something really great if YOU cared!--for now it is only to please you that I live." A sense of shame stung him at this simple avowal. "Nonsense!" he said, almost brusquely--"You have a thousand other things to live for--you must not think of pleasing me only. Besides I'm not very--keen on literature,--I'm a painter." "Surely painting owes something to literature?" she queried--"We should not have had all the wonderful Madonnas and Christs of the old masters if there had been no Bible!" "True!--but perhaps we could have done without them!" he said, lightly--"I'm not at all sure that painting would not have got on just as well without literature at all. There is always nature to study--sky, sea, landscape and the faces of lovely women and children,--quite enough for any man. Where is Lord Blythe now?" "In Italy," she replied--"He will be away some months."