She dropped the book on the floor, and clasped her hands behind her head.
Looking up at her friend she said, with some of the old mischievous light in her eyes—
"Poets are shams, are they not? They dress everything up in such beautiful language that you begin to think that life is a beautiful thing after all, instead of being such a hollow delusion as it is!"
"You remind me of the story of the chaffinch, who built her nest upon a rotten branch of an old elm. When a storm came, it fell, and her nest was a ruin. 'Ah,' she said to a group of sympathising birds who gathered around her, 'let this be a lesson to you, not to trust to trees. They look so strong but they're all sham, rotten through and through. They were never meant to bear the weight of a nest!'"
Jean smiled, and then shook her head.
"I am not going to build again, Miss Lorraine. My life is ruined. My art was my god, and like Dagon it has fallen, and has broken into a thousand pieces!"
"May all such gods fall!" said Miss Lorraine gravely.
Jean looked at her in astonishment.
"That sounds like a curse. Do you hate art, Miss Lorraine?"
"No, but it ought not to be raised up as a god."