Go on,'-- to pick her up and carry her away with him, because she was Maisie, and because she understood, and because she was his right, and a woman to be desired above all women.
Then he checked himself abruptly.

'And so I took all I wanted,' he said, 'and I had to fight for it.

Now you tell.' Maisie's tale was almost as gray as her dress.

It covered years of patient toil backed by savage pride that would not be broken thought dealers laughed, and fogs delayed work, and Kami was unkind and even sarcastic, and girls in other studios were painfully polite.

It had a few bright spots, in pictures accepted at provincial exhibitions, but it wound up with the oft repeated wail, 'And so you see, Dick, I had no success, though I worked so hard.' Then pity filled Dick.