"Oh, I see." Stanley settled back.
"Suppose she should prove not to be a great artist—what then?" persisted Cyrilla, who was deeply interested in the intricate obscure problem of what people really thought as distinguished from what they professed and also from what they imagined they thought.
"The fact that she's a great artist—that's part of her," said Baird. "If she weren't a great singer, she wouldn't be she—don't you see?"
"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with an ironic sadness which she indulged openly because there was no danger of his understanding.
"I don't exactly love her because she amounts to a lot—or is sure to," pursued he, vaguely dissatisfied with himself. "It's just as she doesn't care for me because I've got the means to take care of her right, yet that's part of me—and she'd not be able to marry me if I hadn't. Don't you see?"
"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with more irony and less sadness. "There's always SOME reason beside love."
"I'd say there's always some reason FOR love," said Baird, and he felt that he had said something brilliant—as is the habit of people of sluggish mentality when they say a thing they do not themselves understand. "You don't doubt that I love her?" he went on. "Why should I ask her to marry me if I didn't?"
"I suppose that settles it," said Cyrilla.
"Of course it does," declared he.
For an hour he sat there, talking on, most of it a pretty dull kind of drivel. Mrs. Brindley listened patiently, because she liked him and because she had nothing else to do until bedtime. At last he rose with a long sigh and said: