Jean turned at the sound of the new voice beside her. There on the same settee sat a robust, middle-aged late comer. Her satin coat was worn and frayed, her hat altogether too youthful with its pink and mauve butterflies veiled in net. It did make one think of poor Cynthy and her yearnings towards roses. Jean saw, too, that there was a button missing from her gown, and her collar was pinned at a wrong angle, but the collar was real lace and the pin was of old pearls. It was her face that charmed. Framed in an indistinct mass of fluffy hair, gray and blonde mixed, with a turned up, winning mouth, and delightfully expressive eyes, it was impossible not to feel immediately interested and acquainted. Before they had sat there long, Jean found herself indulging in all sorts of confidences. They seemed united by a common feeling of, not isolation exactly, but newness to this circle. “I enjoy it so much more sitting over here and looking on,” Jean said. “Cousin Beth knows everyone, of course, but it is like a painting. You close one eye, and get the group effect. And I must remember everything to write it home to the girls.” “Tell me about these girls. Who are they that you love them so?” asked her new friend. “I, too, like the bird’s eye view best. I told Morel I did not come to see anything but his pictures, and now I am ready for tea and talk.” So Jean told all about Greenacres and the girls there and before she knew it, she had disclosed too, her own hopes and ambitions, and perhaps a glimpse of what it might mean to the others still in the nest if she, the first to fly, could only make good. And her companion told her, in return, of how sure one must be that the spark of inspiration is really a divine one and worthy of sacrifice, before one gives up all to it. “Yonder in France, and in Italy too, but mostly in France,” she said, “I have found girls like you, my child, from your splendid homeland, living on little but hopes, wasting their time and what money could be spared them from some home over here, following false hopes, and sometimes starving. It is but a will-o’-the-wisp, this success in art, a sort of pitiful madness that takes possession of our brains and hearts and makes us forget the daily road of gold that lies before us.” “But how can you tell for sure?” asked Jean, leaning forward anxiously. “Who can answer that? I have only pitied the ones who could not see they had no genius. Ah, my dear, when you meet real genius, then you know the difference instantly. It is like the real gems and the paste. There is consecration and no thought of gain. The work is done irresistibly, spontaneously, because they cannot help it. They do not think of so called success, it is only the fulfilment of their own visions that they love. You like to draw and paint, you say, and you have studied some in New York. What then?” Jean pushed back her hair impulsively.