“But after all,” Charles said more clearly, “it doesn’t matter about being acclaimed. It’s just like making music for deaf people: the music’s there; the music’s there. And so it doesn’t matter very much whether you love me. It’s one’s weakness that wants that, one’s loneliness. I can love you just the same, perhaps better; it’s the audience that spoils things. I should think it does!”
“So you’re quite happy.”
“Not quite,” he answered, “but I have something to do, something I can do, too. Music—no, I’m not good enough. I’m no more than an amateur, but in this I can be supreme.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” she said acutely. “If you wrote a poem you might think it was perfect, but you wouldn’t absolutely know till you’d tried it on other people. So you can’t be sure about love.”
“You mightn’t be,” he said with a touch of scorn. “You may depend on other people, but I don’t.”
She made a small sound of scorn. “No, you’ll never know whether you’re doing this wonderful work of yours well or not because,” she said, cruelly exultant, “it won’t be tested.”
“Ah, but it might be. You’ve got to do things as though they will be.”
“I suppose so,” she said indifferently. “And now I must go back.”
He turned obediently and thrust the parcel at her.
“But aren’t you going to take me home?” she asked.