"My God! it is a lovely morning," he said—"it is insolently lovely. I've been dreaming, I think. Those trees look as if they were dreaming, too. I wonder if they have such horrible dreams as I? I think I must have been asleep. I feel queer and only half awake, and I've had bad dreams—horrid dreams."
"Did he have nasty dreams?" said she, sympathetically. "He said he was going to work so hard, and he's dreamed instead."
Frank seemed hardly to hear her.
"It began by my wondering whether I ought to go on with that portrait or not," he said. "I kept thinking—"
"You shall go on with it, Frank," broke in Margery, suddenly, afraid of letting herself consent—"I tell you that you must go on with it."
Frank roused himself at the sound of her eager voice.
"You don't understand," he said. "I know that I am running a certain risk if I do. I told you about one of those risks I was running, didn't I? It was that, partly, I was drawing about all morning. I thought I was in danger all the time. I was running the risk of losing myself, or becoming something quite different to what I am. I ran the risk of losing you, myself—all I care for, except my Art."
"And with a big 'A,' dear?" asked Margery.
"With the very biggest 'A,' and all scarlet."
"The Scarlet Letter," said Margery, triumphantly, "which you were reading last week? That accounts for that symptom. Go on and be more explicit!"