Beth was silent.

“Yearning is religion,” Bedient added.  “Hunger of the heart for higher things will bring spiritual expansion.  Look at the better-born children to-day.  I mean those who do not have every chance against them.  I seem to catch a new tone in the murmur of this rousing generation.  They have an expanded consciousness.  It is the spiritual yearnings of motherhood.”

“But what of the woman who will not take the bowl of porridge that ordinary man gives her?” Beth demanded.  “So many women dare not—­cannot—­and then their dreams, their best, are not reflected in the consciousness of the new race.”

Bedient smiled, and Beth regarded her work intently, for an echo of the confessional had come back to her from her own words.

“That is a matter so intensely individual,” he replied.  “We are at the beginning of the woman’s era, and with every transition there are pangs to be suffered by those who are great enough.  These great ones are especially prepared to see how terrible is their denial from the highest privileges of woman.  And yet they may be spiritual mothers, centres of pure and radiant energy.  Every work of genius has been inspired by such a woman.  And if, as sometimes happens, a true lover does come, the two are so happy that the temperature of the whole race warms through them.”

“What an optimist!” she said, but when alone, it came to her that he had been less certain than usual in this answer.  Perhaps, he had felt her stress upon realizing the personal aspect; perhaps he had too many things to say, and was not ready.  It was a matter intensely individual.  However, this was the only time he had failed to carry her critical attention.

* * * * *

Bedient saw that the years had locked one door after another about the real heart of Beth Truba.  His work was plain—­to unlock them one by one.  How the task fascinated; he made it his art and his first thought.

“You change so,” she complained laughingly, after there had been several sittings.  “I’m afraid I shall paint you very badly because I am trying so hard.  You don’t look at all the same as you did at first.  Therefore all the first must be destroyed.”

Bedient knew if his work prospered, all that had been before would be redeemed.

One morning—­it was one of the first of the May mornings—­there was something like heart-break in the room.  Up on the skylight, the sparrows were debating whether it would rain or not.  There was tension in the air which Bedient tried to ease from every angle.  Consummately he set about to restore and reassure, but she seemed to feel her work was faring ill; that life was an evil thing.  All the brightness that had suffused her mind from his presence, again and again, had vanished apparently, leaving not the slightest glow behind.

“Don’t bother to work on this to-day,” he said.  “I am not in the slightest hurry and you are to do it wonderfully.  Please be sure that I know that....  Will you go with me to the Metropolitan galleries to-day?”