She turned to him fondly. “You were doing very well, darling. I noticed at the time. It’s just your inexperience that made you feel a trifle ill at ease. With a little more experience, you will be quite as charming as Howard Morgan. More so, darling!” 3 Tell one whom you have caused to be waylaid and tortured by cruel savages, that he has passed through the incident very creditably; tell him that with a little more practice he will be able to wear the true martyr’s look of joy! And then kiss him.... Yes, and pretend that you love him, that you are the wife of his bosom. Ah, serpent! Delilah! That was the way Felix felt as he lay sleeplessly at Rose-Ann’s side that night; but he knew perfectly well why he felt that way. He was just looking for an excuse to get out of taking a little trouble.... Of course things like that went hard, at first; so was walking hard to a child who had just begun fearfully to stand upon its two feet; so was breathing hard at first for the new-born infant—did it not greet the world with a cry of pain? Yes, life was hard; that was why it was so interesting. It would be dull if one never did anything one was afraid to do.... And why, at the age of twenty-two, should he still find it an agony to meet a roomful of people?... No, confound it, that wasn’t true! There were roomfuls of people he could meet, with pleasure; it was _these_ people—they meant nothing to him, he nothing to them.... Or was it just egotism? Was it because he _was_ nothing to them, that he resented their presence? Was it just the feeling of mother’s little boy who goes out to play and finds that instead of being the Young Prince, he is only one of a crowd? He remembered his first day in school—the humiliation of suddenly finding himself nobody in particular!... Yes, he had gone there that evening as if he alone in the world had ever admired Howard Morgan—and found himself merely one of dozens. He had hoped to impress the great man by his admiration; and he had found his admiration not at all needed. That was why he was angry at his hero!... And then, too, perhaps a little jealous. As if he had thought, “I could get the same kind of worship if I would condescend to pay for it in the same way you do!” But could he? Was he, too, in spite of his protestations to Rose-Ann, secretly dreaming of greatness? Was it because this man dared admit himself a poet, a creator, a Somebody, that Felix Fay disliked him?—And what was he doing to realize those dreams? It was all very well to say, “Some day!” But—no, his destiny wasn’t just writing silly-clever things for the Chronicle. But what was it? Rose-Ann believed in him. Did he believe in himself?