Mr. Pembroke’s teeth were clear of meringue, and he could refrain no longer. “My dear Rickie, your father and mother are dead, and you often say your aunt takes no interest in you. Therefore your life depends on yourself. Think it over carefully, but settle, and having once settled, stick. If you think that this writing is practicable, and that you could make your living by it—that you could, if needs be, support a wife—then by all means write. But you must work. Work and drudge. Begin at the bottom of the ladder and work upwards.” Rickie’s head drooped. Any metaphor silenced him. He never thought of replying that art is not a ladder—with a curate, as it were, on the first rung, a rector on the second, and a bishop, still nearer heaven, at the top. He never retorted that the artist is not a bricklayer at all, but a horseman, whose business it is to catch Pegasus at once, not to practise for him by mounting tamer colts. This is hard, hot, and generally ungraceful work, but it is not drudgery. For drudgery is not art, and cannot lead to it. “Of course I don’t really think about writing,” he said, as he poured the cold water into the coffee. “Even if my things ever were decent, I don’t think the magazines would take them, and the magazines are one’s only chance. I read somewhere, too, that Marie Corelli’s about the only person who makes a thing out of literature. I’m certain it wouldn’t pay me.” “I never mentioned the word ‘pay,’” said Mr. Pembroke uneasily. “You must not consider money. There are ideals too.” “I have no ideals.” “Rickie!” she exclaimed. “Horrible boy!” “No, Agnes, I have no ideals.” Then he got very red, for it was a phrase he had caught from Ansell, and he could not remember what came next. “The person who has no ideals,” she exclaimed, “is to be pitied.” “I think so too,” said Mr. Pembroke, sipping his coffee. “Life without an ideal would be like the sky without the sun.” Rickie looked towards the night, wherein there now twinkled innumerable stars—gods and heroes, virgins and brides, to whom the Greeks have given their names. “Life without an ideal—” repeated Mr. Pembroke, and then stopped, for his mouth was full of coffee grounds. The same affliction had overtaken Agnes. After a little jocose laughter they departed to their lodgings, and Rickie, having seen them as far as the porter’s lodge, hurried, singing as he went, to Ansell’s room, burst open the door, and said, “Look here! Whatever do you mean by it?” “By what?” Ansell was sitting alone with a piece of paper in front of him. On it was a diagram—a circle inside a square, inside which was again a square.