"That's such a nice theory for you, dear," said Margery, "especially if you are inclined to be lazy."
Frank made a little hopeless gesture of impatience.
"Lazy, industrious—industrious, lazy; what have those to do with it? You don't understand me a bit. When the time has come that I should paint, I do so inevitably; if the time has not come, it is impossible for me to paint. I know that you think artists are idle, desultory, Bohemian, irregular. That is part of their nature as artists. A man who grinds out so much a day is not and cannot be an artist. The sap flows, and we bud; the sap recedes, and for us it is winter-time. You do not call a tree lazy in winter because it does not put out leaves?"
"But a tree, at any rate, is regular," said Margery; "besides, evergreens."
"Yes, and everlasting flowers," said Frank, impatiently. "The tree is only a simile. But we are not dead when we don't produce any more than the tree is dead in December."
Margery frowned. This theory of Frank's was her pet aversion, but she could not get him to give it up.
"Then do you mean to say that all effort is valueless?"
"No, no!" cried Frank; "the whole process of production is frantic, passionate effort to realize what one sees. But no amount of effort will make one see anything. I could do you a picture, which you would probably think very pretty, every day, if you liked, of 'Love in a Cottage,' or some such inanity."
Jack crossed his legs, thoughtfully.
"The great objection of love in a cottage," he said, "is that it is so hard to find a really suitable cottage."