“That isn’t fair, I didn’t mean that, only it’s all so discouraging, to want to paint masterpieces and to be told to draw cartoons.” “Did he tell you that?” Terry spoke eagerly. “Not in so many words, but that’s what he meant.” “Then he rather admired your ability to do cartoons?” “I suppose so.” “Then why don’t you go in for that? One must do something, you know—play some game and that is better than most.” Ruth did not answer. “If you’d like I dare say you could do theatrical caricatures for the Sunday _Express_ every week. It wouldn’t take much time. Of course you’d soon get as fed up with the theatre as a dramatic critic, but it would be interesting for a time and you could continue to study, to take time to prove whether or not you have talent. If you say I may, I’ll speak to Daly about it the next time I see him.” “I’d like it I think—after all, as Mr. Courtenay said, it’s better to be a good cartoonist than a bad painter, and I can always keep on studying. It will not be exactly giving up my ambition, only I won’t be gambling everything on it.” Then, as if half ashamed of her surrender, and wishing to change the subject, “But we didn’t intend to talk about me, we were going to talk about Gloria, weren’t we?” “Is it absolutely necessary that we should have something very definite to talk about?” he asked, smiling. “Suppose I just asked you to meet me for tea, because.” Was he teasing her, she wondered. “But now that we are together, because, let’s talk about Gloria. I won’t know anything more about Professor Pendragon until Sunday. I’m going there with Dorothy Winslow, who is going to do a portrait of him, but in the meantime I’d feel very much happier if he was out of the house, or if not George, at least the snake. Couldn’t you kill it, Terry? That might make George so angry that he’d leave. And anyway, the snake is the important thing. Without the snake George would be comparatively harmless. You must kill the snake.” “But, my dear girl, how do you propose that I am to make away with George’s little pet? It belongs to George, you know. I don’t even know where he keeps it, and if I did it is his property and it wouldn’t be legal, you know—” “I wish you wouldn’t laugh at me—” “I’m not laughing at you. Even if I can’t quite believe all the things that you believe, I can still see that the situation is serious, but I can’t see how killing the snake would help any. My idea is a bit different and perhaps quite as bizarre in its way. I’ve been thinking that if we could bring Gloria and Professor Pendragon together again, then he would take her away from George and the snake and save us the trouble of taking George and the snake away from her.” “It sounds good, but there’s no way to do it. I’ve given Gloria my word that I’ll not mention her name to him and the other day she even made me promise not to mention his name to her again.” “Even so, there must be other people who know both of them.”