She said, finally, "I should have thought that art was much more of an end in itself."
"Ah, there we come to the philosophy of it," said Jack. "It is, of course, a sort of mysticism. One lays hold of something eternal in all achievement; but then, you see, one finds out that the eternal isn't cut up into sections, as it were—art here, ethics there—intellect yonder; one finds out that all that is eternal is bound up with the whole, so that you can't separate beauty from goodness and truth any more than you can divide a man's moral sense from his artistic and rational interests."
"Still, it's in sections for us, surely? What very horrid people can be great artists," Mrs. Upton half questioned, half mused.
"Ah, I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" Jack broke out. "You'll find a flaw in his art, if you find a moral chaos in him. It must be a harmony!"
The corner was long since turned, and on a simple stretch of blue Mrs. Upton now looked up at him with a smile that showed him that whether she liked what he said or not, she certainly liked him. It was here that the slight bewilderment came in, to feel that he had been upholding some unmoral doctrine she would have smiled in just the same way; and the bewilderment was greater on feeling how much he liked her to like him. Over the didactic intentions, a boyish, an answering, smile irradiated his face.
"I'm not much of a thinker, but I suppose that it does all come together, somehow," she said.
"I'm sure that you make a great deal of beauty, wherever you are," Jack answered irrelevantly. "I've heard that your cottage in England is so charming. Mrs. Wake was telling me about it."
"It is a dear little place."
He remembered, suddenly, that the room where they talked contradicted his assertion, and, glancing about it furtively, his eye traversed the highly glazed surface of the Correggio. Mrs. Upton's glance followed his. "I don't think I ever cared, so seriously, about beauty," she said, smiling quietly. "I lived, you see, for a good many years in this room, just as it is." There was no pathos in her voice. Jack brought it out for her.
"I am sure you hated it!"