Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) by Rudyard Kipling

can pay you back is by speaking the truth. I daren’t tell a fib. I despise myself quit enough as it is.’
    ‘What in the world for?’
    ‘Because — because I take everything that you give me and I give you nothing in return. It’s mean and selfish of me, and whenever I think of it it worries me.’
    ‘Understand once for all, then, that I can manage my own affairs, and if I choose to do anything you aren’t to blame. You haven’t a single thing to reproach yourself with, darling.’
    ‘Yes, I have, and talking only makes it worse.’
    ‘Then don’t talk about it.’
    ‘How can I help myself? If you find me alone for a minute you are always talking about it; and when you aren’t you look it. You don’t know how I despise myself sometimes.’
    ‘Great goodness!’ said Dick, nearly jumping to his feet. ‘Speak the truth now, Maisie, if you never speak it again! Do I — does this worrying bore you?’
    ‘No. It does not.’
    ‘You’d tell me if it did?’
    ‘I should let you know, I think.’
    ‘Thank you. The other thing is fatal. But you must learn to forgive a man when he’s in love. He’s always a nuisance. You must have known that?’
    Maisie did not consider the last question worth answering, and Dick was forced to repeat it.
    ‘There were other men, of course. They always worried just when I was in the middle of my work, and wanted me to listen to them.’
    ‘Did you listen?’
    ‘At first; and they couldn’t understand why I didn’t care. And they used to praise my pictures; and I thought they meant it. I used to be proud of the praise, and tell Kami, and — I shall never forget — once Kami laughed at me.’
    ‘You don’t like being laughed at, Maisie, do you?’
    ‘I hate it. I never laugh at other people unless — unless they do bad work.
    Dick, tell me honestly what you think of my pictures generally, — of everything of mine that you’ve seen.’
    ‘“Honest, honest, and honest over!”‘ quoted Dick from a catchword of long ago. ‘Tell me what Kami always says.’
    Maisie hesitated. ‘He — he says that there is feeling in them.’
    ‘How dare you tell me a fib like that? Remember, I was under Kami for two years. I know exactly what he says.’
    ‘It isn’t a fib.’
    ‘It’s worse; it’s a half-truth. Kami says, when he puts his head on one side, — so, — ”Il y a du sentiment, mais il n’y a pas de parti pris.”‘ He rolled the r threateningly, as Kami used to do.
    ‘Yes, that is what he says; and I’m beginning to think that he is right.’
    ‘Certainly he is.’ Dick admitted that two people in the world could do and say no wrong. Kami was the man.
    ‘And now you say the same thing. It’s so disheartening.’
    ‘I’m sorry, but you asked me to speak the truth. Besides, I love you too much to pretend about your work. It’s strong, it’s patient sometimes, — not always, — and sometimes there’s power in it, but there’s no special reason why it should be done at all. At least, that’s how it strikes me.’
    ‘There’s no special reason why anything in the world should ever be done. You know that as well as I do. I only want success.’
    ‘You’re going the wrong way to get it, then. Hasn’t Kami ever told you so?’
    ‘Don’t quote Kami to me. I want to know what you think. My work’s bad, to begin with.’
    ‘I didn’t say that, and I don’t think it.’
    ‘It’s amateurish, then.’
    ‘That it most certainly is not. You’re a work-woman, darling, to your boot-heels, and I respect you for that.’
    ‘You don’t laugh at me behind my back?’
    ‘No, dear. You see, you are more to me than any one else. Put this cloak thing round you, or you’ll get chilled.’
    Maisie wrapped herself in the soft marten skins, turning the gray kangaroo fur to the outside.
    ‘This is delicious,’ she said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully along the fur.
    ‘Well? Why am I wrong in trying to get a little success?’
    ‘Just because you try.