Hortense looked at me thoughtfully, with her cheek resting on her hand.

“Have you done nothing but read and dream?”

“Not quite.  I have travelled.”

“With what object?”

“A purely personal one.  I was alone and unhappy, and—­”

“And fancied that purposeless wandering was better for you than healthy labor.  Well, you have travelled, and you have read books.  What more?”

“Nothing more, except—­”

“Except what?”

I chanced to have one of the papers in my pocket, and so drew it out, and placed it before her.

“I have been a rhymer as well as a dreamer,” I said, shyly.  “Perhaps the rhymes grew out of the dreams, as the dreams themselves grew out of something else which has been underlying my life this many a year.  At all events I have hewn a few of them into shape, and trusted them to paper and type—­and here is a critique which came to me this morning with some three or four others.”

She took the paper with a smile half of wonder, half of kindness, and, glancing quickly through it, said:—­

“This is well.  This is very well.  I must read the book.  Will you lend it to me?”

“I will give it to you,” I replied; “if I can give you that which is already yours.”

“Already mine?”

“Yes, as the poet in me, however worthless, is all and only yours!  Do you suppose, Hortense, that I have ever ceased to love you?  As my songs are born of my sorrow, so my sorrow was born of my love; and love, and sorrow, and song, such as they are, are of your making.”

“Hush!” she said, with something of her old gay indifference.  “Your literary sins must not be charged upon me, fellow-student!  I have enough of my own to answer for.  Besides, I am not going to acquit you so easily.  Granted that you have written a little book of poetry—­what then?  Have you done nothing else?  Nothing active?  Nothing manly?  Nothing useful?”

“If by usefulness and activity you mean manual labor, I certainly have neither felled a tree, nor ploughed a field, nor hammered a horse-shoe.  I have lived by thought alone.”

“Then I fear you have lived a very idle life,” said Hortense, smiling.  “Are you married?”

“Married!” I echoed, indignantly.  “How can you ask the question?”

“You are not a magistrate?”

“Certainly not.”

“In short, then, you are perfectly useless.  You play no part, domestic or public.  You serve neither the state nor the community.  You are a mere cypher—­a make-weight in the social scale—­an article of no value to any one except the owner.”

“Not even the latter, mademoiselle,” I replied, bitterly.  “It is long since I have ceased to value my own life.”

She smiled again, but her eyes this time were full of tears.

“Nay,” said she, softly, “am I not the owner?”

* * * * *