Again that queer smile came and went as Laura worked and listened, and again it had its effect, its odd, exciting effect upon Oliver. He felt generous, affectionate, expansive. He felt that he would do anything to help the dear girl....
“Should I be likely to back you up?” he demanded—“if I weren’t sure? Haven’t I wallowed in art students? But you—” he flung out dramatic hands—“look at those two things! Isn’t your stuff up to mine? Of course! And d’you know why? The technique—excuse my saying so——” (the artist in him, the realest thing in him, was coming out again) “the technique is—oh, unlawful! utterly! but——” his hand came down heavily on her shoulder—“Oh, damn you, woman, there’s religion in it!” cried Oliver. “I’ll never get that. Oh, I don’t mean Church of England.”
Laura was no longer staring at her drawing. He was interesting her at last.
“What is it you put in?”
He shook at her impatiently as he stood behind her. There was real passion in his voice.
“I don’t know.” She was honestly puzzled. “I’m not bad, I know. But you—you imagine a lot.” And then, consolingly, “I shouldn’t worry. You just see—in ten years you’ll be at the top. I’m sure of it. But I shall fizzle out. I’m bored with it already—this medium, anyhow. Oh, don’t you see?” She followed up her thoughts as, exploring, one follows strange footfalls in the dark of a passage—“Don’t you feel what the difference is? You—a man—a man has got to put himself into only one thing, painting or music or whatever it is. But a girl can put herself into whatever happens along. He has a gift for painting. She has just a gift. Oh, don’t you see? Isn’t it interesting? I never thought of it before. That’s the difference between men and women. You’re born craftsmen; but we—it’s not the craft we care about. It’s just something in us—the religion, as you say—that’s got to get out somewhere—anywhere. We could be just as religious over cooking a dinner.”
Oliver writhed.
“Oh, but we could. Look here—I’m doing this for my grandfather. He’s never been able to afford to come to Italy. So it’s got to be good—to please him. If I did it like yours, to be sold, without knowing to whom it was going—well, I couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t be worth doing for its own sake. I shouldn’t enjoy it. You can’t understand that, can you? That’s because you’re an artist and I’m not, and never shall be, religion or no religion.”
Her brilliant face was very close to his as she sat and talked to him over her shoulder: she always lit up like a little Christmas tree when she was excited. He thought, with a touch of heady self-congratulation, that she had never talked to him like this before (forgetting how little chance he usually gave her). He did not realize how impersonal were her speculations, he marvelled merely that she should be so charming to him. “There must be some reason!” cried his eager vanity.
“Religion?” He hesitated, smiling. “I believe I know a better word.”