dollars! And fish-and liver-everything your little heart might desire! And if I were a regular human being, I'd go right out and buy you what you ask for. But that 's where you 've made your big mistake. I'm not a regular human being! I'm an artist. Do you know what an artist is like? Well, you'll find out if you stick around here. But I'm sorry for you, cat. A pint of milk costs only eight cents, but that eight cents will buy me time and freedom in which to write twenty-nine words of my novel. You would n't think I could possibly care more for twenty-nine words than for a pretty little thing like you. But that 's what artists are like when they are really artists. If they are going to care more about other people than about their art, why, they might as well give up and go back to a job, and get married and support a wife like everybody else. You see, don't you, cat?" He cut two slices from the loaf, and crumbled one of them into a saucer of water. "I'm giving you just what I'm having myself," he said"bread and water." The kitten nosed the dish on the floor, sniffed disdainfully, and looked up at him. "Milk!” it said impatiently. There was a knock at the door. He hastily pushed the saucer out of sight under his gas-stove before opening. The girl stood there. "Oh-hello!" he replied. He did not ask her in. Instead, he waited with a look of severe inquiry, as if asking how she dared interrupt a busy man. She missed this look, for she was gazing past him. "What a darling little thing!" she cried, and then walked into his room. She knelt and petted the kitten and then looked up. "I think it's hungry," she said. "Oh, do you think so?" he asked indifferently. What right had she to come in and criticize? It was none of her business if the kitten was hungry. "Yes, I'm sure it is," she said, and rose. "Wait a minute, kitty!" and she ran out, and down the stairs. She was going out into the cold without anything on her head; she ought not to do that. But, then, he reminded himself, that was none of his business. He waited uneasily. At last she came back with a quart bottle of milk. "It needs to be warmed," she said, lighting the gas, and pouring the milk into one of his saucepans, after mysteriously putting some of the creamy top-milk aside in a cup. She was making herself very much at home, he thought resentfully. "You don't imagine that cat can drink a whole quart of milk?" he asked. She laughed as though he had said. something very funny. "Do you like milk-toast?" she asked. "Yes," he said unguardedly. "So do I," she told him. "We'll have some, shall we? You cut the bread and make the toast. Here, kitty, this is your share." She poured some of the warm milk into a saucer. The kitten lapped it gratefully. She was putting butter and pepper and salt into the saucepan, and had turned up the gas under it. "Hurry with the toast!" she warned. "We 'll make the coffee afterward." He hurried. VI. The Difficulty of Being an Artist. The next evening she knocked on the door again, and this time she had a bottle of milk with her. "How's the kitten?" she asked. A kitten, he had discovered, was a nuisance to a busy writer. It climbed into his lap and purred noisily when he wanted to think; it climbed up on his writing-table and played with his pen while he tried to write. And it did no good to scold a kitten; it could not take him seriously. It regarded everything from its own point of view. It chose It chose his pile of manuscript to go to sleep on in the daytime, and at night it awoke, after he was in bed, and played, leaping from the table to his bed and walking over his face. But all he said was: "Oh, the kitten 's all right." "Milk?" said the kitten, speaking for itself. "Yes, here's your milk," she said. Again she made milk-toast and coffee for the two of them. This time the other half of his loaf of bread was used up. He said to himself, "Well, there will be no more milk-toast, anyway." But the third evening she appeared with a bottle of milk under one arm and a loaf of bread under the other. He began to have a horrid suspicion. Had he eaten too ravenously of that milk-toast? Did she know he was hungry? Did she perhaps think he was too poor to buy himself food? Was she making the kitten an excuse for-yes, for feeding him? These hateful surmises made him surly, but she did not seem to mind. And when she lingered that evening after their dinner, and talked about writing in a way that showed she understood something of an artist's difficulties, he could not but become friendly. When she bade him good night she was so sweet that he forgot his resolutions, and stooped to kiss her. She flung her arms about him and passionately returned his kiss, then disengaged herself and ran from the room. This would not do; he must not keep this up. To-morrow he would not be here when she came, or he would lock the door and pretend not to be here; she could think what she liked. Let her think him a cad! Artists had to be cads sometimes. He locked the door the next evening and waited. He heard her light step coming down-stairs from the room above. He heard the front door close. Again he waited. He heard the front door open and close many times as various people came in, then her quick step on the stairs. He held his breath. She had reached the landing, she was coming toward his door. Be firm now! "Miss Glory!" It was the landlady's querulous voice from the other end of the hall. "Yes?" June Glory's voice sounded a little anxious. "I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you for that rent. I can't wait any longer." There was a pause. "I'll give it to you to-morrow." The girl's tone was cool, but there was a tinge of desperation in it. "Well, see that you do, then. Tomorrow is the last day, mind you. I'm a poor woman myself, and I can't have people staying in my rooms for nothing. I've not asked the rent from you in advance,-you know that,But here it is the fifth of November, and I 've got to have my October rent. There's been two people I 've turned away already-" "Please! You shall have the rent to-morrow," said June in a low tone. "All right; to-morrow noon at the latest!" and the landlady clumped down the stairs. The young man listening behind the door silently shifted the bolt. The girl's steps turned slowly away from his door toward the stairs that led to her room. He flung open the door. She looked at him and flamed red. She came slowly, and he shut the door behind her. "You heard?" she asked. "Yes." "I'm sorry." She laid her parcels on the table, and stood there, looking as though she had done something to be ashamed of. "How much is it?" he demanded. She straightened her little shoulders and looked at him calmly. "None of your business," she said. "Well-it's probably eight dollars, the same as mine," he said, and went to his secret and sacred hoard. He came back with a bill. "Here!" he said roughly. She put her hands behind her back. "No," she said. "Why not?" "I can't." "What will you do to-morrow?" "There may be a check-from one of the magazines." "Are you so conventional-minded as all that?" She stopped crying, and looked at him scornfully. "No, but you are!" she said. "You mean," he cried indignantly, "that just because of this, I'll think I've the—the right to make love to you? I assure you-” "That's just it," she said. "You'll think that just because of this, you— have n't the right to any more!" He stepped back, overwhelmed. VII. Spendthriftiness. They were very happy. He was playing for the first time in his life with a wonderful playmate. They went to the theater, they danced, they dined in gilded cafés. With her he entered a strange, unfamiliar world and made new friends. Every evening with her he threw away a week's precious freedom. And he did not care. They played through November and December. On New Year's eve he took from his hiding-place the last of his money. "I've just twenty dollars left in the world," he told her. "Come, and let's spent it together." "Is that true?" she asked soberly. He had told her about himself; she knew that he had saved up some money, but she did n't know how "And if there should n't?" he pur- little. Money was a subject on which sued relentlessly. "I don't care!" "Silly girl!" he said. "Take this, damn you!" and he forced it into one of her clenched hands. Then she burst out crying. she was very vague. She had had so little that it intoxicated her to help spend it; nevertheless, she had remembered to protest from time to time, which had only made him angry. "You 've been very reckless," she "What's the matter now?" he asked. said reprovingly now. "Would you like me better if I were already decided in his own mind, he very sensible?" he asked. went over the whole question again. "No," she said and sighed. "I seem to like reckless people." "I'm glad you do." "I suppose I 'm not the stuff of which real artists are made," he thought. Oh, he would manage somehow to finish that novel-or a better one. "But I'd like to be reckless, too," she said. "I got my first check for a poem to-day. It's only ten dollars. But let's put it with yours and spend it!" Her eyes brightened with excitement. "No," he begged, "let this be my take that job, anyway." party." He had n't known very much about life when he planned that one. Fate was n't as grim as he had thought. And love was sweeter. "All right, then," she said. "I'll save it for bread and milk. I sha'n't mind going back to our milk-toast parties again. Shall you? But too bad the kitten won't be here to share them." For the kitten, now that there was no novel-writing to interfere with, had left him, and, as he learned after making inquiries, had found a home in another house on the square. There was no accounting for the whims of a kitten. "Do you love me?" he asked. "What do you think?" She kissed him. "I think perhaps you do." "But what are your plans?" she asked. "I wish I could stake you while you finish your novel," she added wistfully. "I'll tell you my plans," he promised, "on the stroke of midnight.' They started out to the old year's jocund funeral. VIII. Ring Out, Wild Bells. It wanted five minutes of twelve. They were at a table in a noisy café. As the hour approached that would bring in the new year they became silent. "In five minutes," he said to himself. And, as though the matter were not "Well," he said to himself, “I 'll That job was one he had been offered by some of his new friends; it was on a magazine. It was a better job than he had ever dreamed of having. If he wanted to, he could save up his money and buy years of freedom to write. Or, on the other hand "That," he mused, "is the question." And he frowned as he pondered it. If he married, he would n't be able to save up to write. He would have to think first of his wife always. And then there would be babies. He would have to give up his freedom. "But I don't mind," he thought. "That's the odd thing about it. As an artist, I ought to mind. When an artist marries, he is simply taking money that belongs to his art and spending it on a girl-and her babies. And yet my friends will congratulate me. They'll think I am doing a fine thing. If I were a bank cashier and betrayed my trust in order to spend money on a girl, they would n't congratulate me. They'd put me in jail. But I shall be considered a good citizen. "It 's funny," he thought. "I can see it all so clearly. And yet I don't care. So I suppose I 'm not really an artist at all. I'm just human—and a man. I can't bear to think of that girl ever going hungry, waiting for a check from some damned magazine. Oh, I shall be happy, working for her. But I ought to be ashamed of myself!" There was a hush throughout the café, and then the noise of horns and bells burst in from the outside. People stood on chairs and lifted their glasses and laughed and sang and cheered. "Now tell me what 's on your mind," said the girl, leaning forward so as to be heard above the din. He took both her hands in his and told her his plans and asked her to marry him. be a wife to any one. It's terribly nice of you to want me to be, Paul. And what you say is true. It would be pleasant to be taken care of, and all that; but I'll have to take my chances. Oh, I know I would be happy, being your wife. It's just that I 'm most afraid of! Don't you see?" "Oh!" he said. "I'm sorry, dear," she said, pressing his hands in hers. "It 's been so lovely, all of it; but I thought you understood!" IX. Postscript. All this happened "Oh!" she said, and tears came into several years ago in Greenwich Vil |