“They make a brave show,” he said, looking round. “After all, I'm not entirely sorry they have never been sold. I should not like to part with them. No, I did not realise how many there were.” In spite of his cheeriness the last words sounded a note of pathos that caught the girl's sensitive ear. “'Let us make a tour of inspection,” she said. They went the round, pausing long before each picture. He said little, contrary to his habit, for he was wont to descant on his work with playful magniloquence. He saw the years unfold behind him and disclose the hopes of long ago yet unfulfilled. What endless months of dreams and thrills and passionate toil hung profitless upon these walls! Things there were, wrought from the depths of his radiant faith in man, plucked from the heart of his suffering, consecrated by the purest visions of his soul. Had Aline been an older woman, a woman who had loved him, lived with him in a wife's intimate communion, instead of being merely the tender-hearted child of his adoption, she would have wept her heart out. For she, alone of mortals, would have got behind such imperfections as there were, and would have seen nothing but a crucifixion of the quivering things torn out of the life of the beloved man. Only vaguely, elusively did the girl feel this. But even her half-comprehending sympathy was of great comfort. She thought no one in the world could paint like Jimmie, and held in angry contempt a public that could pass him by. She was hotly his advocate, furious at his rejection by hanging committees, miserably disappointed when his pictures came back from exhibitions unsold, or when negotiations with dealers for rights of reproduction fell through. But she was too young to pierce to the heart of the tragedy; and Jimmie was too brave and laughter-loving to show his pain. Other forces, too, had been at work in her development. Recently her mind had been grappling with the problem of her unpayable debt to him. This silent pilgrimage round the years brought her thoughts instinctively to herself and the monstrous burden she had been. “I have been wondering lately, Jimmie dear,” she said at last, “whether you would not have been more successful if you had not had all the worry and expense and responsibility of me.” “Good Lord!” he cried in simple amazement, “whatever are you talking of?” She repeated her apologia, though in less coherent terms. She felt foolish, as a girl does when a carefully prepared expression of feeling falls upon ears which, though inexpressibly dear, are nevertheless not quite comprehending. “You have had to do pot-boilers,” she said, falling into miserable bathos, “and I remember the five-shillings-a-dozen landscapes--and you would have spent all that time on your real work--Oh, don't you see what I mean, Jimmie?” She looked up at him pathetically--she was a slight slip of a girl, and he was above the medium height. He smiled and took her fresh young face between his hands.