She pushed back a little curl which was always coming loose,--he loved that little curl for always coming loose. "Perhaps I 'got it' from that way you have of looking at me--the way you're looking at me now; or maybe I got it from the way you say 'Ernestine'--the way you said it just now. But does it matter much what comes from which?"--with which bit of lucidity she wrinkled up her nose at him in a way which always vanquished argument and returned to the silence which seemed waiting to claim her. He watched her then; he loved so to do that--just see how far he could follow. Ernestine seemed to draw things to her in a way very wonderful to him. "You know, liebchen,"--as he saw that steady light of resolution shine through the veil of her tenderness--"it seems so queer to me that you really _do_ anything." "Well for a neatly turned compliment--" "I mean it seems so queer you should really _amount_ to anything." "Now before you overwhelm me with further adulation, what _are_ you talking about?" "I'm talking about your being an artist. I can't get used to your being anything but _Ernestine_! That day last spring when we went to see your Salon picture, and when those chaps were talking to you, and I realised that they just simply accepted you as one of them--that you belonged, and that that was all there was about it--I, oh I had such a funny feeling that day. And now, a minute ago, when I saw that look, I had it again." "Why, Karl, you don't _mind_, do you?" "No, it's just that it seems queer. You see you're such a wonderful sweetheart, it's hard to think of you as anything else. I'll never forget that day over there. Something just seemed to leap up within you. I--well I think I was a little scared--or was I awed? Something that was shining from your eyes made me feel things in my backbone." "But you're glad?" she laughed. "Of course I'm glad; and I'm proud. But it's--queer." She smiled at him understandingly; the understandingness of her smile always went beyond her words. It was a beautiful face upon which he watched the play of lights, saw the changing currents of thought and dreams and purpose. But the thing most rare in it, that which made one quite forget accepted standards, was the steadfastness with which a certain great light shone through the aura of her tenderness. There were moments in which she transcended both her beauty and her beauty's weaknesses. As the flower to the sun, naturally, quietly, inevitably, she had expanded under the breath of life. With the fullness of a rich nature she had responded to the touch of the spirit of living. Love loved her for what she had been able to take.