Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/112

104 her eyes grew moist. She was a failure. Her ambition had outstripped her gift.

"I needn't have been so supercilious, Miserere," she remarked, stroking the cat's gray head. "I'm like you, after all. I thought that it was work I cared for, the discipline of hand and brain. But I rather think I wanted only 'sweet victual.'"

Then she reddened at the memory of her thoughts of the night before.

"A woman's despair — with complications" — she said, half laughing, "is very dangerous. I can't surrender now, anyway. Whatever love is, it isn't a second choice."

She pushed the table away. She was not hungry.

she quoted sadly. "I have more: bread, and tears,—and jam."

Then she put on her painting-apron.

"I wonder if the gods really want me to give up," she asked herself meekly,