[Illustration: "'I know it is you. Is it?'">[
"Nobody ever won a race looking behind him," she Said, gaily; "let 'em menace and loom!"
He laughed in a half-hearted fashion, then his head fell again slowly, and he sat there brooding, silent.
"Louis, why are you always dissatisfied?"
"I always will be, I suppose." His discontented gaze grew more vague.
"Can you never learn to enjoy the moment?"
"It goes too quickly, and there are so many others which promise more, and will never fulfil their promise; I know it. We painters know it when we dare to think clearly. It is better not to think too clearly—better to go on and pretend to expect attainment…. Stephanie, sometimes I wish I were in an honest business—selling, buying—and could close up shop and go home to pleasant dreams."
"Can't you?"
"No. It's eternal obsession. A painter's work is never ended. It goes on with some after they are asleep; and then they go crazy," he added, and laughed and laid his hand lightly and unthinkingly over hers where it rested on the arm of her chair. And he remained unaware of her delicate response to the contact.
The stars were clear and liquid-bright, swarming in myriads in the June sky. A big meteor fell, leaving an incandescent arc which faded instantly.