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“Hardly,” said Anne, smiling, with the woman’s instinct to mask the trouble that vaguely stirred in her, although this man could not see her face. “I am industrious, but not gifted. If I’ve any part in it, I suppose it is because you feel my delight in what you are creating, and that unconsciously urges you on. I suspect it’s no more than the simple thing we call genius, and that it takes it out of you to ride Pegasus.”

Richard Latham kept his blind eyes turned steadily toward her as if he could see her and would fathom the mystery. He shook his head. “That isn’t it,” he said, slowly. “There is something about you that makes me do my best, and more than my own best. I had other people before you came to help me, and it was a regular grind. No grind with you to start me off and hold me to it, you quiet wonder-worker! But you didn’t tell me; do you mind reading to me to-day? I don’t want to be troublesome.”

He repeated the words with a wistful note in his voice that made Anne spring to her feet and cross to a chair near him. She clasped her hands in her lap, her face sweet with pity. She could not endure it that this man, whose genius she followed breathlessly, should fear to burden others. It stabbed her to know that he never could escape this fear.