 enjoying, if the
chance were given you, and yet at the same time as incapable of wrong-doing.«
    »I am sure,« said Gertrude, »that you are very wrong in telling a person
that she is incapable of that. We are never nearer to evil than when we believe
that.«
    »You are handsomer than ever,« observed Felix, irrelevantly.
    Gertrude had got used to hearing him say this. There was not so much
excitement in it as at first. »What ought one to do?« she continued. »To give
parties, to go to the theatre, to read novels, to keep late hours?«
    »I don't think it's what one does or one doesn't do that promotes
enjoyment,« her companion answered. »It is the general way of looking at life.«
    »They look at it as a discipline - that's what they do here. I have often
been told that.«
    »Well, that's very good. But there is another way,« added Felix, smiling:
»to look at it as an opportunity.«
    »An opportunity - yes,« said Gertrude. »One would get more pleasure that
way.«
    »I don't attempt to say anything better for it than that it has been my own
way - and that is not saying much!« Felix had laid down his palette and brushes;
he was leaning back, with his arms folded, to judge the effect of his work. »And
you know,« he said, »I am a very petty personage.«
    »You have a great deal of talent,« said Gertrude.
    »No - no,« the young man rejoined, in a tone of cheerful impartiality, »I
have not a great deal of talent. It is nothing at all remarkable. I assure you I
should know if it were. I shall always be obscure. The world will never hear of
me.« Gertrude looked at him with a strange feeling. She was thinking of the
great world which he knew and which she did not, and how full of brilliant
talents it must be, since it could afford to make light of his abilities. »You
needn't in general attach much importance to anything I tell you,« he pursued;
»but you may believe me when I say this, - that I am little better than a
good-natured feather-head.«
    »A feather-head?« she repeated.
    »I am a species of
