Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/228

"I am sure of it. It must be charming to be so clever."

"Yes. Nothing else matters if you are as clever as all that. It doesn't affect Jean in the least if things happen to go wrong, because she always has her cleverness to console her, don't you see."

"Brains are a perennial consolation," said Tom solemnly; "I always knew, Miss Nancy, that your sister was very exceptional."

"Exceptional! Yes, I suppose I am that," thought Jean with a curious feeling of dissatisfaction. The burden of her own cleverness was almost too much for her, and she would have given worlds, just then, to have been as ordinary as Nancy—and as beautiful.

"Will you forgive me if I go upstairs and finish a drawing?" she said, coming forward into the firelight again. They uttered some conventional regrets, and Tom held the door open for her. "Good-bye," she said, smiling, "I am sorry my drawing won't wait. It has to go in to-morrow morning."

"I envy you your charming talent," he said with a sigh that was a little overdone.

"Do you? It prevents me from being domesticated, you know, and that is always a pity, isn't it?" she said, and drew her hand away quickly.

Upstairs with her head on an old brown cloak she lay and listened to the hum of voices below.

"Why wasn't I born a fool with a pretty face?" she murmured. "Fools are the only really happy people in the world, for they are the only people the rest of us have the capacity to understand. And to be understood by the majority of people is the whole secret of happiness. No one would take the trouble to understand me. Of course, it is unbearably conceited to say so, but there is no one to hear."

When