"You don't understand," he said. "I know that I am running a certain risk if I do. I told you about one of those risks I was running, didn't I? It was that, partly, I was drawing about all morning. I thought I was in danger all the time. I was running the risk of losing myself, or becoming something quite different to what I am. I ran the risk of losing you, myself--all I care for, except my Art." "And with a big 'A,' dear?" asked Margery. "With the very biggest 'A,' and all scarlet." "The _Scarlet Letter_," said Margery, triumphantly, "which you were reading last week? That accounts for _that_ symptom. Go on and be more explicit!" "I know you think it is all absurd," said Frank, "but I am a better judge than you. I know myself better than you know me--better, please God, than you will ever know me. However, you won't understand that. But with regard to what I told you: when I paint a picture, you think the net result is I and a picture, instead of I alone. But you are wrong. There is only I just as before; and inasmuch as there is a picture, there is less of myself here in my clothes." "A picture is oil-paint," said Margery, "and you buy that at shops." "Yes, and brushes too," said Frank; "but a picture is not only oil-paint and brushes." "Go on," said Margery. "Well, have I got any right to do it? In other pictures it has not mattered because one recuperates by degrees, and one does not put all one's self into them. But painting this I feel differently. I am going into it, slowly but inevitably. I shall put all I am into it--at least, all I know of while I am painting; and what will happen to this thing here" (he pointed to himself) "I can't say. All the time I was painting, that thought with others was with me, as if it had been written in fire on my brain. Have I got any business to run risks which I can't estimate? I know I have a certain duty to perform to you and others, and is it right for me to risk all that for a painted thing?" He stood up. "Margery," he said, "that is not all. Shall I tell you the rest? There is another risk I run much more important, and much more terrible. May I tell you?"