"Isn't another reason that patience is too expensive to be indulged in by talent?"
He laughed: "That is perfectly true. The majority of us have to make a living before we know how."
"Did you have to do that?"
"No, I didn't."
"You were fortunate?"
"Yes. I wasperhaps. I'm not sure."
She touched the lump of green wax gravely, absently. He remained looking at her, busy with his own reflections.
"Would you like to have a chance to study?" he asked.
"Study? What?"
"Sculptureany old thing! Would you like to try?
"What chance have I for such expensive amusements as study?" she laughed.
"I'll be responsible for you."
"You?"in blank surprise.
"I'll attend to the material part of it, if you like. I'll see that you can afford thepatience."
"Mr. Neville, I don't understand."
"What don't you understand?" he asked, lazily humorous.
"Do you meanthat you offer mean opportunity"
"Yes; an opportunity to exercise patience. It's an offer, Miss West. But I'm perfectly certain you won't take it."
For a long while she sat, her cheek resting on one palm, looking fixedly into space. Then she stirred, glanced up, blushed vividly, sprang to her feet and crossed to where he sat.
"I've been considering your offer," she said, striving to speak without effort.
"I'll bet you won't accept it!"
"You win your wager, Mr. Neville."
"I wonder why?" he said with his bantering smile: "but I think I know. Talent in America is seldom intellectually ambitious."
To his amazement and vexation tears sprang to her eyes; she said, biting her lower lip: "My ambition is humble. I caremore than anything in the worldto be of use toto your career."
Taken completely by surprise he said, "Nonsense," and rose to confront her where she stood wholly charming in her nervous, flushed emotion:
"It isn't nonsense, Mr. Neville; it is my happiness.
"I don't believe you realise what your career means to me. I would not willingly consider anything that might interrupt my humble part in itin this happy companionship. After all, happiness is the essential. You said so once. I am happier here than I possibly could be in an isolation where I might perhaps studylearn" Her voice broke deliciously as he met her gaze in cool, curious disapproval.
"You can't understand it!" she said, flushing almost fiercely. "You can't comprehend what the daily intimacy with a man of your sort has doneis doing for me every moment of my life. How can you understand? You, who have your own place in the worldin lifein this countryin this city! You, who have family, friends, clubs, your social life in city and country, and abroad. Life is very full for youhas always been. Butwhat I am now learning in contact with you and with the people to whom you have introduced meis utterly new to meandverypleasant. I have tasted it; I cannot live without it now."
She drew a deep quick breath, then, looking up at him with a tremulous smile:
"What would you think if I told you that, until Sam took me, I had never even been inside a theatre except when I was engaged by Schindler? It is perfectly true. Mother did not approve. Until I went with John Burleson I had never ever been in a restaurant; until I was engaged by Schindler I had never seen the city lighted at nightI mean where the theatres and cafés and hotels are. And, Mr. Neville, until I came here to you, I had never had an opportunity to talk to a cultivated man of my own ageI mean the kind of man you are."
She dropped her eyes, considering, while the smile still played faintly with the edges of her lips; then:
"Is it very hard for you to realise that what is an ordinary matter of course to the young of my age is, to me, all a delightful novelty?that I am enjoying to a perfectly heavenly degree what to you and others may be commonplace and uninteresting? All I ask is to be permitted to enjoy it while I am still young enough. II must! I really need it, Mr. Neville. It seems, at moments, as if I could never have enoughafter the yearswhere I hadnothing."
Neville had begun walking to and fro in front of her with the quick, decisive step that characterised his movements; but his restlessness seemed only to emphasise the attention he concentrated on every word she spoke; and, though he merely glanced at her from moment to moment, she was conscious that the man now understood, and was responding more directly to her than ever before in their brief and superficial acquaintance.
"I don't want to go away and study," she said. "It is perfectly dear of you to offer itIthere is no use in trying to thank you"
"Valerie!"
"What!" she said, startled by his use of her given name for the first time in their acquaintance.
He said, smilingly grave: "You didn't think there was a string attached to anything I offered?"
"Aa string?"
"Did you?"
She blushed hotly: "No, of course not."
"It's all right then," he nodded; but she began to think of that new idea in a confused, startled, helpless sort of way.
"How could you think that of me?" she faltered.
"I didn't"
"Youit must have been in your mind"
"I wanted to be sure it wasn't in yours"
"You ought to have known! Haven't you learned anything at all about me in two months?"
"Do you think any man can learn anything about anybody in two months?" he asked, lightly.
"Yes, I do. I've learned a good deal about youenough, anyway, not to attribute anythingunworthy"
"You silly child; you've learned nothing about me if that's what you think you've discovered."
"I have discovered it!" she retorted, tremulously; "I've learned horrid things about other men, tooand they're not like you!"
"Valerie! Valerie! I'm precisely like all the restmy selfishness is a little more concentrated than theirs, that's the only difference. For God's sake don't make a god of me."
She sat down on the head of the sofa, looking straight at him, pretty head lowered a trifle so that her gaze was accented by the lovely level of her brows:
"I've long wanted to have a thorough talk with you," she said. "Have you got time now?"
He hesitated, controlling his secret amusement under an anxious gravity as he consulted the clock.
"Suppose you give me an hour on those figures up there? The light will be too poor to work by in another hour. Then we'll have tea and 'thorough talks.'"
"All right," she said, calmly.
He picked up palette and mahl-stick and mounted to his perch on the scaffolding; she walked slowly into the farther room, stood motionless a moment, then raising both arms she began to unhook the collar of her gown.
When she was ready she stepped into her sandals, threw the white wool robe over her body, and tossed one end across her bare shoulder.
He descended, aided her aloft to her own eyrie, walked across the planking to his own, and resumed palette and brushes in excellent humour with himself, talking gaily while he was working:
"I'm devoured by curiosity to know what that 'thorough talk' of yours is going to be about. You and I, in our briefly connected careers, have discussed every subject on earth, gravely or flippantly, and what in the world this 'thorough talk' is going to resemble is beyond me"
"It might have to do with your lack of ceremonya few minutes ago," she said, laughing at him.
"Mywhat?"
"Lack of ceremony. You called me Valerie."
"You can easily revenge that presumption, you know."
"I think I willKelly."