Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/124

116 a boy your soul has fluttered from one ideal to another. You could never make a complete surrender to anything. Isn't this latest theory a kind of escape from complete devotion to your art? It seems to me an excuse for your temperament."

The young man grew pale.

"I've been pretty constant to one thing," he said. "My surrender to you has been too complete for my own good."

"That's the reason why I won't give up. One can be constant only to the unattainable. I don't wish to be numbered among your achievements."

"I consider that very feminine and very young," Howard remarked. "Haven't I worked pretty hard over my successive enthusiasms?"

"Yes," Anne admitted, "you have a strong will, only there is something behind it that—wobbles. Now I must go away. Mrs. Kent is waiting for me."

"I sha'n't forget that you said you like me."

"If I liked you enough," said Anne