"Do so, by all manner of means!" exclaimed Madeline, her voice trembling. "Perhaps I shall prove to have been your friend in this way, at all events. As your wife in London lodgings on the third floor, I confess it is very unlikely I should have aided you. I haven't the least belief in projects of that kind. At best, you would have been forced into some kind of paltry work just to support me--and where would be the good of our marriage? You know perfectly well that lots of men have been degraded in this way. They take a wife to be their Muse, and she becomes the millstone about their neck; then they hate her--and I don't blame them. What's the good of saying one moment that you know your work can never appeal to the multitude, and the next, affecting to believe that our marriage would make you miraculously successful?" "Then it would have been better to part before this." "No doubt--as it turns out." "Why do you speak bitterly? I am stating an obvious fact." "If I remember rightly, you had some sort of idea that the fact of our engagement might help you. That didn't seem to me impossible. It is a very different thing from marriage on nothing a year." "You have no faith in me; you never had. And how _could_ you believe in what you don't understand? I see now what I have been forced to suspect--that your character is just as practical as that of other women. Your talk of art is nothing more than talk. You think, in truth, of pounds, shillings and pence." "I think of them a good deal," said Madeline, "and I should be an idiot if I didn't. What is art if the artist has nothing to live on? Pray, what are _you_ going to do henceforth? Shall you scorn the mention of pounds, shillings and pence? Come to see me when you have had no dinner to-day, and are feeling very uncertain about breakfast in the morning, and I will say, 'Pooh! your talk about art was after all nothing but talk; you are a sham!'" Marsh's leg began to ache. He rose and moved about the room. Madeline at length turned her eyes to him; he was brooding genuinely, and not for effect. Her glance discerned this. "Well, and what _are_ you going to do, in fact?" she asked. "I'm hanged if I know, Mad; and there's the truth." He turned and regarded her with wide eyes, seriously perceptive of a blank horizon. "I've asked him to let me have half the money, but he refuses even that. His object is, of course, to compel me into the life of a Philistine. I believe the fellow thinks it's kindness; I know my mother does. She, of course, has as little faith in me as you have." Madeline did not resent this. She regarded the floor for a minute, and, without raising her eyes, said: "Come here, Clifford." He approached. Still without raising her eyes, she again spoke. "Do you believe in yourself?" The words were impressive. Marsh gave a start, uttered an impatient sound, and half turned away. "Do you believe in yourself, Clifford?" "Of course I do!" came from him blusterously.