He shook his head and pointed silently up the stairs. She went, hurrying up the three flights as if the act of going up lifted her above her own discontent and above the unhappiness of Gloria. She went into the studio and looked at the canvas on which she had been working. It was hard to wait until morning to begin on it again. It had been a week since she had touched it. When she began she had intended rising early to get an hour’s work before breakfast, but evenings in the company of Gloria and her friends had kept her up late and youth claimed its need of rest despite her firmest resolves. It was no good, the picture, anyway. She would paint it all out and begin over again. She would spend her Sundays in the country with the other art students, sketching. She had not entered into the student life enough. And she had entered into Gloria’s life too much. If she had been taking her work more seriously she would not have had time to fall in love with Terry Riordan. She did not question that it was love that had come into her life to complicate things. In Indianapolis it had all seemed so simple. There were paint and canvas and her hands to work with, and she would study and work and exhibit and become famous. Now it was made plain to her that art itself was not a matter of paint and canvas and exhibitions, or even of work as Dorothy Winslow had said, but a matter of men and women, and competition and struggle and love and hate and jealousy and thwarted ambitions like those of the woman who lay down there prostrate with defeat. The defeat that was such a tragic jest—a great talent useless because the actress was too tall. If success was dependent on such things as that of what use to struggle and work? Crouched on the floor before her canvas she looked up through the skylight at a star, and soft tears moved slowly down her cheeks, tears for herself and for Gloria and for all the unfruitful love and labour in the world. CHAPTER III Ever since her conversation with Dorothy Winslow, Ruth had wondered whether it would not be better if she had taken painting and composition instead of portrait painting in the morning. But she didn’t like to give up the portrait painting and she knew that if she suggested attending one of the evening classes Gloria would object that she was working too hard. Of course she was her own mistress, but it wasn’t pleasant to meet with opposition nevertheless. She spoke to Dorothy about it. “You can’t get everything in a year, and it all counts. I don’t think one can tell exactly what one’s forte is until one has studied for some time. Better keep on as you are. Certainly don’t give up the portrait class. Bridgelow is wonderful,” Dorothy had assured her, “and you may not get a chance to study under him again.”