By afternoon the demon Doubt had shaken his self-confidence, and Fear peered at him between every line of his manuscript, and it was a case of Childe Roland from that time on until the pencil fell from his unnerved fingers and he rose from his work satiated, half-stunned, not knowing whether he had done well or meanly. Vaguely he realized at such moments that, for such as he, a just appraisal of his own work would never be possible for him—that he himself would never know; and that what men said of it—if, indeed, they ever said anything about his work—would never wholly convince him, never entirely enlighten him as to its value or its worthlessness. That is one of the penalties imposed upon the creative mind. It goes on producing because it must. Praise stimulates it, blame depresses; but it never knows the truth. Toward the end of May, one afternoon, Stephanie came into his studio, seated herself calmly in his chair, and picked up his manuscript. "It’s no good," he said, throwing himself on an antique sofa which just endured the strain and no more. She read for an hour, her grey eyes never leaving the written pages, her pretty brows bent inward with the strain of concentration. He watched her, chin on hand, lying there on the sofa. But the air was mild and languorous with the promise of the coming summer; sunshine fell across the wall; the boy dozed, presently, and after a while lay fast asleep. She had been gone for some time when he awoke. As he sat up, blinking through the late afternoon sunshine, a pencilled sheet of yellow manuscript paper fluttered from his breast to the floor. Jim, it is fine! I mean it! It is a splendid, virile, honest piece of work. And it is intensely interesting. I’m quite mad about it—quite thrilled that you can do such things. It’s so masterly, so mature—and I don’t know where you got your knowledge of that woman, because she is perfectly feminine and women think and do such things, and her motives are the motives that animate that sort of woman. As you lie there asleep you look about eighteen—not much older than when I used to see you when you came home from school and lay on your sofa and read Kipling aloud to me. _Then_ I was awed; you were a grown man to me. _Now_ you are just a boy again, and I love you dearly, and I’m going to kiss your hair, very cautiously, before I go downstairs. I’ve done it. I’m going now. STEVE. *CHAPTER XXII* It happened one day late in May that Cleland, desiring local accuracy of detail in a chapter of his brand new novel, put on his hat and walked to Washington Square and across it, south, into the slums. New leaves graced the trees in the park; spring flowers bloomed around the fountain, and the grass was rankly fragrant where it had just been mowed.