[Illustration: "Then Rita came silently on sandalled feet to stand behind him and look at what he had done."] He nodded. "Yes," he said, "what does it matter to him, now? A man carves out his resting place as you say, but he carves it out in vain. Those who come after him will either place him in his proper sepulchre ... or utterly neglect him.... And neglect or transfer will cause him neither happiness nor pain.... Both are ended for Querida;--let men exalt him above all, or bury him and his work out of sight--what does he care about it now? He has had all that life held for him, and what another life may promise him no man can know. All reward for labour is here, Rita; and the reward lasts only while the pleasure in labour lasts. Creative work--even if well done--loses its savour when it is finished. Happiness in it ends with the final touch. It is like a dead thing to him who created it; men's praise or blame makes little impression; and the aftertaste of both is either bitter or flat and lasts but a moment." "Are you a little morbid, Kelly?" "Am I?" "It seems to me so." "And you, Rita?" She shook her pretty head in silence. After a while Gladys jumped up into her lap, and she lay back in her arm-chair smoothing the creature's fur, and gazing absently into space. "Kelly," she said, "how many, many years ago it seems when you came up to Delaware County to see us." "It seems very long ago to me, too." She lifted her blue eyes: "May I speak plainly? I have known you a long while. There is only one man I like better. But there is no woman in the world whom I love as I love Valerie West.... May I speak plainly?" "Yes." "Then--be fair to her, Kelly. Will you?" "I will try." "Try very hard. For after all it _is_ a man's world, and she doesn't understand it. Try to be fair to her, Kelly. For--whether or not the laws that govern the world are man-made and unjust--they are, nevertheless, the only laws. Few men can successfully fight them; no woman can--yet.... I am not angering you, am I?" "No. Go on." "I have so little to say--I who feel so deeply--deeply.... And the laws are always there, Kelly, always there--fair or unfair, just or unjust--they are always there to govern the world that framed them. And a woman disobeys them at her peril." She moved slightly in her chair and sat supporting her head on one pretty ringless hand. "Yet," she said, "although a woman disobeys any law at her peril--laws which a man may often ignore with impunity--there is one law to which no woman should dare subscribe. And it is sometimes known as 'The Common Law of Marriage.'" She sat silent for a while, her gaze never leaving his shadowy face.