“I know your fearless nature, darling,” she said; “but what is the point of running unnecessary risks?”
“Local colour. There is a great deal in Mr. Etherington’s remarks.”
“I don’t agree. I should think with our experience we ought to be able to describe New York without going there. We didn’t find it necessary to go to Athens, or Khartoum, or Mexico.”
“True,” said he; “but perhaps my descriptions might have gained in veracity if we had. That was a tiresome letter to the Yorkshire Telegraph about the spires on the Acropolis. If we had been there, we should have known that there weren’t any.”
He fingered the stud-box in his pocket for a moment, and his fingers itched to drop it over a ship’s side.
“My part of our joint work might gain in true artistic feeling,” he said, “if I described what I had actually seen. Art holds the mirror up to nature, you know.”
“Yes, darling; but do you think Shakespeare meant that Art must hold the mirror up to New York?” asked she. “I fancy there is very little nature in New York.”
He took a turn or two up and down the room, while the box positively burned his finger-tips.
“I can’t help feeling as I do about it,” he said. “And, Phœbe, one of our earliest vows to each other was that each of us should respect the other’s literary conscience!”
She got up.