“I knew you’d make a hit,” he declared.
“But I didn’t.”
“My dear girl, you don’t give yourself a chance. You can’t play hide and seek with the public, though, by Jove!” he added, ruefully, “I have been lately.”
“For the present I can afford to wait.”
“Yes, you’re damned lucky in one way, and yet I’m not sure that you aren’t really very unlucky. If you hadn’t found some money you’d have been forced to go on.”
“My dear lad, lack of money wouldn’t make me an artist.”
“What would, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Being fed up with everything. That’s what drove me into self-expression, as I should call it if I were a temperamental miss with a light-boiled ego swimming in a saucepan of emotion for the public to swallow or myself to crack. But conceive my disgust! There was I yearning unattainable ‘isms’ from a soul nurtured on tragic disillusionment, and I was applauded for singing French songs with an English accent. No, seriously, I shall try again, old Jack, when I receive another buffet. At present I’m just dimly uncomfortable. I shall blossom late like a chrysanthemum. I ain’t no daffodil, I ain’t. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that I was forced when young—don’t giggle, you ribald ass, not that way—and I’ve got to give myself a rest before I bloom, en plein air.”
“But you really have got plenty of money?” Airdale inquired, anxiously.
“Masses! Cataracts! And all come by perfectly honest. No, seriously, I’ve got about four thousand pounds.”