“Yes.”  And before she knew what he was doing a brilliant flashed along her ring finger and clung sparkling to it; and she stared at the gold circlet and the gem flashing in the firelight.

There were tears in her eyes when she kissed it, looking at him while her soft lips rested on the jewel.

Neither spoke for a moment; then, still looking at him, she drew the ring from her finger, touched it again with her lips, and laid it gently in his hand.

“No, dear,” she said.

He did not urge her; but she knew he still believed that she would come to think as he thought; and the knowledge edged her lips with tremulous humour.  But her eyes were very sweet and tender as she watched him lay away the ring as though it and he were serenely biding their time.

“Such a funny boy,” she said, “and such a dear one.  He will never, never grow up, will he?”

“Such an idiot, you mean,” he said, drawing her into the big chair beside him.

“Yes, I mean that, too,” she said, impudently, nose in the air.  “Because, if I were you, Louis, I wouldn’t waste any more energy in worrying about a girl who is perfectly able to take care of herself, but transfer it to a boy who apparently is not.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean about your painting.  Dear, you’ve got it into that obstinate head of yours that there’s something lacking in your pictures, and there isn’t.”

“Oh, Valerie!  You know there is!”

“No, no, no!  There isn’t anything lacking in them.  They’re all of you, Louis—­every bit of you—­as far as you have lived.”

“What!”

“Certainly.  As far as you have lived.  Now live a little more, and let more things come into your life.  You can’t paint what isn’t in you; and there’s nothing in you except what you get out of life.”

She laid her soft cheek against his.

“Get a little real love out of life, Louis; a little real love.  Then surely, surely your canvases can not disguise that you know what life means to us all.  Love nobly; and the world will not doubt that love is noble; love mercifully; and the world will understand mercy.  For I believe that what you are must show in your work, dear.

“Until now the world has seen in your work only the cold splendour, or dreamy glamour, or the untroubled sweetness and brilliancy of passionless romance.  I love your work.  It is happiness to look at it; it thrills, bewitches, enthralls!...  Dear, forgive me if in it I have not yet found a deeper inspiration....  And that inspiration, to be there, must be first in you, my darling—­born of a wider interest in your fellow men, a little tenderness for friends—­a more generous experience and more real sympathy with humanity—­and perhaps you may think it out of place for me to say it—­but—­a deeper, truer, spiritual conviction.

“Do you think it strange of me to have such convictions?  I can’t escape them.  Those who are merciful, those who are kind, to me are Christ-like.  Nothing else matters.  But to be kind is to be first of all interested in the happiness of others.  And you care nothing for people.  You must care, Louis!