“That’s the other ideal,” he said. “To catch all there is and turn it into song.”
But Peggy was grave.
“But there are so many things that can’t be turned into song,” she said, “and since I very wisely recognise that, I try to turn them into shillings. There is no romance about a wretched family dying of lead-poisoning and there is no song about it except funeral hymns. Besides, I gather that Hugh wants to be an Æolian harp. Well, that’s just what I want him to be. The whole point of the argument has been that he should turn things into song at Covent Garden.”
She got up.
“We must go,” she said, “because we have to be there at the rise of the curtain. Will you follow us in a hansom, Æolian harp?”
The two sisters drove off together in the motor, which was the only thing of her own that Peggy laid claim to.
“Me conventional!” she said, with a sudden spurt of indignation. “Or am I?” she demanded, turning to Edith.
“I suppose everybody who is very young like that thinks other people rather conventional,” she said. “But to be conventional in that sense is unfortunately necessary, if one is to do anything with life. One has to choose one’s line and stick to it, and not mind about other lines—disregard them, in fact.”
“But he didn’t call you conventional,” said Peggy, still humorously indignant. “Besides, I want people to work. It makes them happy.”
“Ah, it makes you happy, you mean; and, of course, many people would be happier if they did work. But I am not sure that working may not be a sort of substitute only for the great thing.”