Grace Clendenning says that Delilah and her artist will achieve a triumph if they keep on.  They aren’t trying to storm society, they are trying to woo it, and out of it the artist gets the patronage of the people whom he meets through Delilah.  Perhaps it will end by Delilah’s marrying him.  But Grace says not.  She says that Delilah simply squeezes people dry, like so many oranges, and when she has what she wants, she throws them aside.

Yet Grace and Delilah get along very well together.  Grace has always made a study of clothes, because it is the only way in which she can find an outlet for her artistic tastes.  And she is interested in Delilah’s methods.  She says that they are masterly.

But I am forgetting to tell you what Delilah said of you.  It was on the night of her house-warming.  She asked about you, and when I said that you had gone south to get atmosphere for some stories you were writing, she said: 

“Do you know it came to me yesterday, while I was in church, where I had seen him.  It was the same text, and that was what brought it back.  He was preaching, my dear.  I remember that I sat in the front pew and looked up at him, and thought that I had never heard such a voice; and now, tell me why he has given it up, and why he is burying himself in the South?”

At first I didn’t know just what to say, and then I thought it best to tell the truth.  So I looked straight at her, and said:  “He made a most unhappy marriage, and gave up his life-work.  But now his wife is dead, and some day he may preach again.”  Was it wrong for me to say that?  I do hope you are going to preach; somehow I feel that you will.  And anyhow while people need never know the details of your story, they will have to know the outlines.  It seemed to me that the easiest way was to tell it and have it over.

Of course Gordon has asked some questions, and I have told what I thought should be told.  I hope that you won’t feel that I have been unwise.  I thought it best to start straight, and then there would be nothing to hide.

And now may I tell you a little bit about Barry?  They want him to go away—­back to England with Gordon and Constance.  You see Gordon looks at it without sentiment.  Gordon’s sentiment stops at Constance.  He thinks that Barry should simply give Leila up, go away, and not come back until he can show a clear record.

Of course I know that Gordon is right.  But I can’t bear it—­that’s why I haven’t been able to face things with quite the courage that I thought I could.  But since my talk with Grace, I am going to look at it differently.  I shall try to feel that Barry’s going is best, and that he must ride away gallantly, and come back with trumpets blowing and flags flying.

And that’s the way you must some day come into your own.—­I like to think about it.  I like to think about victory and conquest, instead of defeat and failure.  Somehow thinking about a thing seems to bring it, don’t you think?