By and by he had his way, and took Charlotte out to the garden.  Little Madam Chase had been put to bed at what she called “early candle-light,” because such an hour best suited her.

“Well, are you going to do me the honour of telling me all about it?” Mr. Brant asked, as he settled himself upon the old bench by Charlotte’s side.  He scanned her closely once more in the waning light.

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“Just what I ask—­all about your coming here.  How you get on.  What it means to you.  Your hopes—­your fears, if you have any.  I realize, better than you do, perhaps, that this is not a small venture for you to make.  I am interested—­you understand how interested—­to know just the situation.”

His tone was that of a brother, warm and kind.  She responded to it.

“I am doing as well as I could expect.  Almost every day I have a sitter—­sometimes two.  My friends are very good; they bring me every one who will come.  People seem to like the things I do—­some of them.”

“Almost every day you have a sitter!” he repeated.  “Do you call that doing well?  How long have you been here?”

“Just seven weeks.  Yes, I do call that doing well.  It takes time to become established, of course.  Now that I have made pictures of many of the prominent people others will follow, I’m confident.  You know this isn’t the portrait season—­too many have cameras of their own and are taking snapshots of outdoor scenes, with themselves in the foreground.”

“You don’t find yourself wishing you had stayed in the city, as I advised?”

“Not a bit.  I want more experience first.  I want to be able to do work I needn’t apologize for when I really begin with a city studio.”

“You are doing finished work, in my opinion.”

“Not in mine.”

He laughed.  “There is nothing weak about your will,” said he.

“I hope not.  I need a strong one.”

“Granted, if you mean to persist in making your own way.  But I live in hope that when you have demonstrated to your own satisfaction that you are perfectly competent to hew out that way for yourself, you will be willing to let some stouter pair of arms take a turn with the axe.”

His tone had meaning in it, but she turned it aside.

“Could anybody take your studio away from you?  Even though you don’t do it for a living, but only because you adore it, could you be induced to give it up?”

“I’m not trying to induce you to give yours up.  I’ll build a separate one for you right beside mine, any time you say the word, and you shall pursue your avocation in perfect freedom.  All I object to is your making the thing your vocation.  I know of a better one for you.”

She shook her head.  “We went over all this ground—­over and over it—­before I came away.  Why do you come out here and begin it all over again?  I don’t want to talk about it.”