Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/152

144 "I can't do it!" she said mournfully. "I'm spoiled by compliments."

Her fingers were like lead. The joy in creating was gone. She sat one day on a hassock in the centre of her room. On the floor lay the three pictures that had won her world for her. Anne examined them with unfriendly eyes.

"Howard is right," she said dejectedly, "but I wouldn't tell him so. They call this realism, but it isn't. I'm an impostor. It's nothing but distance from the hardships of living that lends enchantment to my rendering of life."

"What is the matter?" asked Mrs. Kent, coming in half an hour later. Anne was still upon the hassock, her chin resting in the hollow of her hand.

"My courage has given out," said Anne, rising. "I'd give back all my success for any one of my old illusions about it." Her laugh had a note of pathos in it. "There was a certain inspiration in failure, but I can't bear up under approval. I shall never do any more good work."