“Of course I am sure—­I know.  You want to succeed don’t you?”

Aaron King returned her look, for a moment, without answering.  Then, with a quick, fierce determination that betrayed a depth of feeling she had never before seen in him, he exclaimed, “Do I want to succeed!  I—­I must succeed.  I tell you I must.”

And the woman answered very softly, with her hand upon his arm, “And you shall—­you shall.”

* * * * *

Conrad Lagrange and Czar found the artist on the front porch, pulling moodily at his pipe.

“Is it all over for to-day?” asked the novelist as he stood looking down upon the young man with that peculiarly piercing, baffling gaze.

“All over,” replied the artist, answering the greeting thrust of Czar’s muzzle against his knee, with caressing hand.  “Where did you fly to?”

The other dropped into a chair.  “I would fly anywhere to escape being entertained by that Ragtime’ piece of human nonentity—­Louise Taine.  I saw them coming, just in time.”  He was filling his pipe as he spoke.  “And how did the work go?”

“All right,” replied the painter, indifferently.

The older man shot a curious sidewise glance at his moody companion; then, striking a match, he gave careful attention to his pipe.  Watching the cloud of blue smoke, he said quizzingly, “I suppose ‘Her Majesty’ was royally apparelled for the occasion-properly arrayed in purple and fine linen; as befits the dignity of her state?”

The artist turned at the mocking, suggestive tone and answered savagely, “I suppose you have got to know, damn you!  I’m painting her as a Quaker Maiden.”

Conrad Lagrange’s reply was as surprising in its way as was the outburst of the artist.  Instead of the tirade of biting sarcasm and stinging abuse that the painter expected, the older man only gazed at him from under his scowling brows and, shaking his head, sadly, said with sincere regret and understanding “You poor fellow!  It must be hell.”  Then, as his keen mind grasped the full significance of the artist’s words, he murmured meditatively, “The personification of the age masquerading in Quaker gray—­Shades of the giants who used to be!  What an opportunity—­if you only had the nerve to do it.”

The artist flung out his hand in protest as he rose from his chair to pace up and down the porch.  “Don’t, Lagrange, don’t!  I can’t stand it, just now.”

“All right.” said the other, heartily, “I won’t.”  Rising, he put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “Come, let’s go for a look at the roses, before Yee Kee calls us to dinner.”

In the garden, the artist’s eye caught sight of something white lying in the well-kept path.  With an exclamation, he went quickly to pick it up.  It was a dainty square of lace—­a handkerchief—­with an exquisitely embroidered “S” in the corner.

The two men looked at each other in silence; with smiling, questioning eyes.