"I was a lad, an impetuous lad; and I was handicapped--I married." The man with a failure to explain is always grateful to have married. "But I had the stuff in me, I had the temperament. 'Had' it? I have it now! I may keep an hotel, but I shall never be an hotel-keeper. God gave me my soul, sir; circumstances gave me an hotel. I mayn't paint any more, but an artist by nature I shall always be. I don't say it in any bragging spirit, Heriot; I should be happier if I didn't feel it. The commonplace man may be contented in the commonplace calling: he fills the rôle he was meant for. It's the poor devil like myself, who knows what he _might_ have been, who suffers." Heriot didn't pursue the subject; he puffed his cigar meditatively. After the effervescence subsides, such meetings must always have a little sadness; he looked at the wrinkles that had gathered on his friend's face, and realised the crow's-feet on his own. "You lost your wife, you wrote me?" he remarked, breaking a rather lengthy silence. "In New York, yes--pneumonia. _You_ never married, eh?" "No. Do you stay over here long?" "A month or two; I can't manage more. But I shall leave my girl in London. I've brought her with me, and she'll remain." "Of course," said Heriot, "you have a child--of course you have! I remember a little thing tumbling about in Howland Street. She must be a woman, Cheriton?" "Mamie is twenty-one. I want to see if I can do anything for her before I go back. She loathes Duluth; and she has talent. She'll live with my sister. I don't think you ever saw my sister, did you? She's a widow, and stagnates in Wandsworth--Mamie will be company for her." "Your daughter paints?" "No, not paints; she wants to be an actress. I wasn't very keen on it; but she's got the material in her, and I concluded I'd no right to say 'no.' Still, she's not very strong--takes after her mother, I'm afraid, a little; I'd rather she'd had a gift for something else." "Was it necessary for her to have a gift at all?" asked Heriot, a shade sarcastically. "Couldn't she stop at home?" "Well," said Cheriton, "she tried it, but it's a hard thing for a girl like Mamie to content herself with the life in Duluth. There isn't much art in that, Heriot; there isn't much anything. There's the lake, and Superior Street, and the storekeepers lounging in the doorways and spitting on the wooden sidewalks. And there's a theatre of a sort--which made her worse. For a girl panting to be famous, Duluth is a hell. She's been breaking her heart in it ever since she was sixteen; and after all, it's in the blood. It would have been odd if my daughter _hadn't_ had the artistic temperament, I suppose!" "I suppose it would," said Heriot. "Well, why doesn't she go on the stage in America? I shouldn't think she'd find it easy here."