“I think them, well, very disconcerting,” she replied.

The question was answered for him, and so oppressed was he by the grayness of life that he forgot the tentative proposition she had made for him to go to work. And she, having gone as far as she dared, was willing to wait the answer till she should bring the question up again.

She had not long to wait. Martin had a question of his own to propound to her. He wanted to ascertain the measure of her faith in him, and within the week each was answered. Martin precipitated it by reading to her his “The Shame of the Sun.”

“Why don’t you become a reporter?” she asked when he had finished. “You love writing so, and I am sure you would succeed. You could rise in journalism and make a name for yourself. There are a number of great special correspondents. Their salaries are large, and their field is the world. They are sent everywhere, to the heart of Africa, like Stanley, or to interview the Pope, or to explore unknown Thibet.”

“Then you don’t like my essay?” he rejoined. “You believe that I have some show in journalism but none in literature?”

“No, no; I do like it. It reads well. But I am afraid it’s over the heads of your readers. At least it is over mine. It sounds beautiful, but I don’t understand it. Your scientific slang is beyond me. You are an extremist, you know, dear, and what may be intelligible to you may not be intelligible to the rest of us.”

“I imagine it’s the philosophic slang that bothers you,” was all he could say.

He was flaming from the fresh reading of the ripest thought he had expressed, and her verdict stunned him.

“No matter how poorly it is done,” he persisted, “don’t you see anything in it? — in the thought of it, I mean?”

She shook her head.

“No, it is so different from anything I have read. I read Maeterlinck and understand him — “

“His mysticism, you understand that?” Martin flashed out.

“Yes, but this of yours, which is supposed to be an attack upon him, I don’t understand. Of course, if originality counts — “

He stopped her with an impatient gesture that was not followed by speech. He became suddenly aware that she was speaking and that she had been speaking for some time.

“After all, your writing has been a toy to you,” she was saying. “Surely you have played with it long enough. It is time to take up life seriously — our life, Martin. Hitherto you have lived solely your own.”

“You want me to go to work?” he asked.

“Yes. Father has offered — “

“I understand all that,” he broke in; “but what I want to know is whether or not you have lost faith in me?”

She pressed his hand mutely, her eyes dim.

“In your writing, dear,” she admitted in a half-whisper.

“You’ve read lots of my stuff,” he went on brutally. “What do you think of it? Is it utterly hopeless? How does it compare with other men’s work?”