The distrust of George and foreboding of the future descended on Ruth the moment she entered the house in the afternoon and remained with her, colouring all her thoughts until she entered the Art Students’ League in the morning. Here she forgot everything in passionate pursuit of art, daily lifting her ambition to higher ideals and daily seeming to demonstrate more and more her lack of talent for the career which she had chosen. Seeing her earnestness her fellow students strove to help her, giving her advice and criticism and now and then a word of encouragement, and Ruth, whose confidence in herself was fast slipping, listened to everything, following the advice last received and struggling to “find herself.” The thing that hurt her most was the fact that as yet she had seemed to attract no particular notice from her instructors. In Indianapolis she had been rather important and she could not think that the greater attention she had received there was entirely due to there not being so large a number of students. She longed to ask one of the instructors, but it was hard to do that. They came through, looked impersonally at her work and made brief comments about drawing, proportion, composition, etc. Finally the courage came to her very suddenly in the portrait class one morning. She had come early and was in the front row. Very slowly the instructor, the most frank and vitriolic of all the instructors, according to Nels, was coming toward her. Suddenly she knew that she would speak to him that day. As he stopped from time to time, her courage did not desert her. She waited quite calmly until he reached her side. She rose to let him have her chair, and for some seconds he looked at her work without speaking. Then he began: “Don’t you see that your values are all wrong? And the entire figure is out of drawing; it’s a caricature!” Ruth listened almost without emotion. It was as if he was speaking to some one else. “By the way,” continued the instructor, looking up at her suddenly, “didn’t I see some work of yours in one of the Sunday newspapers about a month ago?” Ruth nodded; she could not speak. “I thought so; I was pleased and surprised at the time to see how much better your work in that line was than anything you have done here. That’s what is the trouble with this; it’s a cartoon.” “But I want to be a portrait painter; I’m interested more in landscapes. Please tell me the truth. Do you think I have talent—possibilities—will I ever do anything?” He looked at her, frowning, yet with a half smile on his lips. “Tell me first, what are you studying for? Are you collecting canvases to take home and show Mother, or do you intend to try for a career—to make a profession of painting?” “It is my profession—I’ve never wanted to do anything else—I must be a great painter.” She spoke with almost hysterical intensity. A shadow passed over the instructor’s face.