"You love it, you revel in it; that's what you want--the only thing you want!" Julia broke out. "To have models, lolling undressed women, do you mean?" "That's what I felt, what I knew," she went on--"what came over me and haunted me yesterday so that I couldn't throw it off. It seemed to me that if I could see it with my eyes and have the perfect proof I should feel better, I should be quiet. And now I _am_ quiet--after a struggle of some hours, I confess. I _have_ seen; the whole thing's before me and I'm satisfied." "I'm not--to me neither the whole thing nor half of it is before me. What exactly are you talking about?" Nick demanded. "About what you were doing this morning. That's your innermost preference, that's your secret passion." "A feeble scratch at something serious? Yes, it was almost serious," he said. "But it was an accident, this morning and yesterday: I got on less wretchedly than I intended." "I'm sure you've immense talent," Julia returned with a dreariness that was almost droll. "No, no, I might have had. I've plucked it up: it's too late for it to flower. My dear Julia, I'm perfectly incompetent and perfectly resigned." "Yes, you looked so this morning, when you hung over her. Oh she'll bring back your talent!" "She's an obliging and even an intelligent creature, and I've no doubt she would if she could," Nick conceded. "But I've received from you all the help any woman's destined to give me. No one can do for me again what you've done." "I shouldn't try it again; I acted in ignorance. Oh I've thought it all out!" Julia declared. And then with a strange face of anguish resting on his own: "Before it's too late--before it's too late!" "Too late for what?" "For you to be free--for you to be free. And for me--for me to be free too. You hate everything I like!" she flashed out. "Don't pretend, don't pretend!" she went on as a sound of protest broke from him. "I thought you so awfully _wanted_ me to paint," he gasped, flushed and staring. "I do--I do. That's why you must be free, why we must part?" "Why we must part--?" "Oh I've turned it well over. I've faced the hard truth. It wouldn't do at all!" Julia rang out. "I like the way you talk of it--as if it were a trimming for your dress!" Nick retorted with bitterness. "Won't it do for you to be loved and cherished as well as any woman in England?" She turned away from him, closing her eyes as not to see something dangerous. "You mustn't give anything up for me. I should feel it all the while and I should hate it. I'm not afraid of the truth, but you are." "The truth, dear Julia? I only want to know it," Nick insisted. "It seems to me in fact just what I've got hold of. When two persons are united by the tenderest affection and are sane and generous and just, no difficulties that occur in the union their life makes for them are insurmountable, no problems are insoluble."