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48 of his mind the figures of those men and women who had told his story, finding them, to his dismay, unexpectedly crude and unlifelike. And the story itself. Was unhappiness so necessary, after all? They suddenly seemed to crumble away into insignificance, these men and women of his creation. In their place he could almost fancy a race of larger beings, a more extensive canvas, a more splendid, a riper and richer vocabulary.

"Nothing that I have ever done," he sighed, "is worth talking to you about. But if you are going to be my friend—"

"Well?"

"If you are going to be my friend," he went on, with almost inspired conviction, "I shall write something different."

"One can rebuild," she murmured. "One can sometimes use the old pieces. Life and chess are both like that."

"Would you help me, I wonder?" he asked impulsively.

She looked away from him, out across the steamer rail. She seemed to be measuring with her eyes the roll of the ship as it rose and fell in the trough of the sea.

"You are a strange person," she said. "Tell me, are you in the habit of becoming suddenly dependent upon people?"

"Not I," he assured her. "If I were to tell you how my last ten years have been spent, you would not believe me. You couldn't. If I were to speak of a tearing, unutterable loneliness, if I were to speak of poverty—not the poverty you know anything about,