'I don't mean one thing or the other yet, Robin! Here's Felix one side telling us that he's very much obliged to me, but I am worse than no use at all; and Edgar and this Allen on the other, saying that here's the line that I am cut out for.'
'But Felix can only mean when you are gone mad after the concert.'
'And who is to help getting mad, when their life is all dulness and botheration? Edgar told me it would be so—and now Felix himself declares it was a mistake my ever working here.'
'Felix must have been terribly displeased, to say so.'
'I believe he was indeed! but I couldn't help it. How can one mind foolscap and satin wove, and all the rest of it, when there are such glorious things beyond?'
'O Lance, I never heard you say "couldn't help it" before!'
'Now, Robin, say in three words. Do you want me to be a mere counter-jumper all my life?'
'O Lance—don't.'
'There, you see what you really feel about it. Now—without coming to such a point as Sims Reeves, or Joachim, or—' (and Lance's face was full of infinite possibility), 'I could with the most ordinary luck get up high enough to have a handsome maintenance; and at any rate, I should live with what is life to me—have time to study the science—be a composer, maybe—and get into a society that is not all inferior. I hate the isolation we live in here—not a real lady out of one's own family to be friendly with one.'
'But I don't think ladies are so with musical people.'