"Are you in love with him?"
"I don't know. I suppose I am. It makes me simply furious.... But I guess I am, Steve.... If he'd behaved as agreeably and pleasantly as he always had behaved I should never have cared for him except in a friendly way. He always has paid his courtship to me in the nicest way.... It was quite ideal, not disturbing, and we exchanged intellectual views quite happily and contentedly.... And then, suddenly he—he flew into a most frightful temper and he told me that he was 'fed up!' My dear, can you imagine my rage and amazement? ... And then he told me what he thought of me—oh, Steve!—the most horrid things ever said about a girl he said to me! I was breathless! I felt as though he had beaten me and dragged me about by my hair.... And then—I don't know how it happened—but I w-waited for him, and we walked home together, and I understood him to say that I'd got to love him if I were a human girl.... And I am.... So—it's that way now with us.... And when I think about it I am still bewildered and furious with him.... But I don't dare let him go.... There are other girls, you know."
Stephanie lay very still. Helen rose presently, turned and walked slowly to the door. There she paused for a moment, then turned. And Stephanie saw in her brown eyes an expression entirely new to her.
"Helen! You are in love with him!" she said.
"I'm afraid I am.... Anyway, I shall not let him go until I am quite certain.... It's abominable that he should have made of me a thing with which I never have had any patience—a girl whose heart has run away with her senses. And that's what he has done to me, I'm afraid."
Stephanie suddenly flushed:
"If he has," she said, "you ought to be glad! You are free to marry him if you love him, and you ought to thank God for the privilege."
"Yes. But what is marriage going to do to my work? I never meant to marry. I've been afraid to. What happens to a girl's creative work if her heart is full of something else—full of her lover—her husband—children, perhaps—new duties, new cares! ... I didn't want to love this man. I loved my work. It took all of me. It's the very devil to have a thing like this happen. It scares me. I can't think of my work now. It bores me to recollect it. My mind and heart are full of this man!—there's no room in it for anything else.... What is this going to do to my career? That's what frightens me to think about.... And I can't give up sculpture, and I won't give up Phil! Oh, Steve, it's the very deuce of a mess—it really is. And you lie there eating chocolates and reading piffle, and you calmly tell me to thank God that I am free to marry!"
Stephanie's clear grey eyes regarded her:
"If you're any good," she said, "your career will begin from the moment you fell in love. Love clears the mind wonderfully. You learn a lot about yourself when you fall in love.... I learned that I had no talent, nothing to express. That's what love has done for me. But you will learn what genius really means."