"Oh, they have their uses," broke in the cheery tones of the optimist. "I'm not much on Shakespeare, but I've no doubt he has his uses also. As for metaphor, it is a convenient way of saying more than you mean." "So is lying," retorted Mr. Paul, crossly, and the conversation languished. Mariana ate her dinner and looked at the table-cloth. Mr. Nevins ate his dinner and looked at Mariana. He regarded her as an artistic possibility. Her appearance was a source of constant interest to him, and he felt, were he in the position of nature, with the palette and brush of an omnipotent colorist, he might blend the harmonious lines of Mariana's person to better advantage. He resented the fact that her nose was irregular and her chin too long. He wondered how such a subject could have been wilfully neglected. As for himself, he honestly felt that he had wasted no opportunities. Upon their first acquaintance he had made a poster of Mariana which undeniably surpassed the original. It represented her in a limp and scantily made gown of green, with strange reptiles sprawling over it, relieved against the ardor of a purple sunset. The hair was a marvel of the imagination. Mariana had liked it, with the single exception of the reptilian figures. "They have such an unpleasant suggestion," was her critical comment. "I feel quite like Medusa. Couldn't you change them into nice little butterflies and things?" Mr. Nevins was afraid he could not. The poster satisfied him as it was. Miss Musin could not deny, he protested, that he had remodelled her nose and chin in an eminently successful job, and if the hair and eyes and complexion in the poster bore close resemblance in color, so did the hair and eyes and complexion in the original. He had done his best. Mariana accepted his explanation and went complacently on her way, as enigmatical as a Chinese puzzle. She was full of swift surprises and tremulous changes, varying color with her environment; gay one moment, and sad before the gayety had left her lips--cruel and calm, passionate and tender--always and ever herself. Twice a week she went to Signor Morani's for a vocal lesson. Signor Morani was small and romantic and severe. In his youth he had travelled as Jenny Lind's barytone, and he had fallen a slave to her voice. He had worshipped a voice as other men worship a woman. Unlike other men, he had been faithful for a lifetime--to a voice. When Mariana had gone to him, an emotional and aspiring soprano of nineteen, he had listened to her quietly and advised patience. "You must wait," he said. "All art is waiting." "I will not wait," said Mariana. "Waiting is starvation." He looked at her critically.