Sometimes  one  felt  more  like  putting  one's  head  down
on  the  table  and  having  a  good  cry.  Her  hands  were
not  quite  steady,  as  she  went  about  the  work  Bea
son  had  patronisingly  left  for  her  to  do,  and  out  of
the  mists  which  blinded  her  there  came  a  picture  of
her  own  quiet  studio  at  home,  where  she  had  worked
with  her  own  things,  things  with  which  she  was  su
preme.  She  saw  herself  at  her  easel,  working  in
that  quick,  sure  way  of  hers,  no  one  to  tell  her  some
one  else  could  do  it  a  great  deal  better,  and  that  it
was  extremely  doubtful  whether  she  could  ever  do
anything  at  all.  A  longing  to  be  back  there  doing
the  things  she  knew  she  could  do,  a  longing  to  have
again  that  sure  sense  of  her  work  as  good,  swept  over
her  then.  She  was  accustomed  to  a  sense  of  mastery  ;
it  was  that  made  some  of  these  things  so  hard.  It
was  not  easy  to  make  over  one's  soul,  even  when  it


LEARNING   TO   BE   KARL'S   EYES     239

was  love  called  one  on.  As  she  went  steadily  ahead
with  her  task,  working  out  painstakingly  the  correc
tion  Beason  had  made,  she  wondered  whether  there
were  as  many  tears  back  of  other  smiles  as  there  had
often  been  back  of  hers.
