"I know it. You admitted it. You are not satisfied with the way things are going. You have doubts about your career. You shrink from your only comfortable alternative, if the career winks out. You ask me my opinion about yourself and about careers. I give it. Now, I find you asked only that you might have someone to lean on, to accuse of having got you into a mess, if doing what you think you ought to do turns out as badly as you fear." It was the longest speech she had heard him make. She had no inclination to dispute his analysis of her motives. "I did not realize it," said she, "but that is probably so. But--remember how I was brought up." "There's only one thing for you to do." "Go back to my husband? You know--about me--don't you?" "Yes" "I can't go back to him." "No." "Then--what?" she asked. "Go on, as now," replied he. "You despise me, don't you?" "No." "But you said you did." "Dislike and despise are not at all the same." "You admit that you dislike me," cried she triumphantly. He did not answer. "You think me a weak, clinging creature, not able to do anything but make pretenses." No answer. "Don't you?" she persisted. "Probably I have about the same opinion of you that you have of yourself." "What WILL become of me?" she said. Her face lighted up with an expression of reckless beauty. "If I could only get started I'd go to the devil, laughing and dancing--and taking a train with me." "You ARE started," said he, with an amiable smile. "Keep on. But I doubt if you'll be so well amused as you may imagine. Going to the devil isn't as it's painted in novels by homely old maids and by men too timid to go out of nights. A few steps farther, and your disillusionment will begin. But there'll be no turning back. Already, you are almost too old to make a career." "I'm only twenty-four. I flattered myself I looked still younger." "It's worse than I thought," said he. "Most of the singers, even the second-rate ones, began at fifteen--began seriously. And you haven't begun yet." "That's unjust," she protested. "I've done a little. Many great people would think it a great deal." "You haven't begun yet," repeated he calmly. "You have spent a lot of money, and have done a lot of dreaming and talking and listening to compliments, and have taken a lot of lessons of an expensive charlatan. But what have those things to do with a career?" "You've never heard me sing." "I do not care for singing." "Oh!" said she in a tone of relief. "Then you know nothing about all this." "On the contrary, I know everything about a career. And we were talking of careers, not of singing." "You mean that my voice is worthless because I haven't the other elements?" "What else could I have meant?" said he. "You haven't the strength. You haven't the health." She laughed as she straightened herself. "Do I look weak and sickly?" cried she.